Alexander Chancellor

Alexander Chancellor was editor of The Spectator 1975-1984. He currently writes the Long Life column.

The birth of a royal baby is hardly an exciting event

25 April 2015 9:00 am

There are already people camping outside St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, to await the birth shortly of another royal baby, the…

The tortoises are alive! (And sitting on the duck’s eggs)

18 April 2015 9:00 am

No sooner had I written last week’s column about the sad disappearance of the two tortoises in my care than…

Have I inadvertently killed my friend’s tortoises?

11 April 2015 9:00 am

It’s April. It’s spring. The daffodils and the cowslips are in flower. The birds are chirping merrily. But where are…

The fox that killed my chickens depressed me more than 250,000 tsunami deaths

4 April 2015 9:00 am

It is hard to know how a tragedy is going to move a person who is not directly affected by…

Be different, be original: that’s what makes a popular politician

28 March 2015 9:00 am

I sometimes try to imagine what it would be like being a political leader. I find this difficult because I…

An Episcopalian vicar made me warm to the principle of women joining gentlemen’s clubs

21 March 2015 9:00 am

In 1993, when I was living in Manhattan working for the New Yorker magazine, I was chosen as ‘distinguished visitor’…

It’s a pointless waste of time for David Cameron to resurrect the hunting debate

14 March 2015 9:00 am

Of all the election promises politicians make in the run-up to a general election the one most certain to remain…

I’ve been sacked more times than I can exactly remember. It teaches you nothing

7 March 2015 9:00 am

The Oldie magazine — of which, until otherwise advised, I appear to be the editor — runs an occasional article…

You can’t force low-income people to go to an art gallery or the theatre if they don’t want to

28 February 2015 9:00 am

I went last week to see the justly praised production of Wagner’s The Mastersingers at English National Opera, and I…

The elderly are society’s new baddies

21 February 2015 9:00 am

The gulf in understanding between the old and the young has widened with the news that the young are beginning…

How the driverless car will liberate us all (except smokers, of course)

14 February 2015 9:00 am

I was listening to the radio the other morning to hear people complaining about the huge cuts in the number…

Alexander Chancellor’s diary: Picking golden oldies, Ken Dodd, and the sadness of Jack Nicholson

7 February 2015 9:00 am

An excellent test of character is a person’s response to being offered an Oldie of the Year Award. There have…

You realise how little you know of anybody when they die

31 January 2015 9:00 am

Whether or not you believe in the afterlife, death remains an impenetrable mystery. One moment a person is making jokes…

The quiet pleasure of washing up (and why I'm still buying a new dishwasher)

24 January 2015 9:00 am

I have been having trouble with my dishwasher. It’s seven and a half years old, and it’s manufactured by a…

Do your patriotic duty and shoot wild boar

17 January 2015 9:00 am

It’s 15 years since I first wrote an article about the threat to the nation of the wild boar; but…

Here I am on Twelfth Night with nothing but benevolence to look back on

10 January 2015 9:00 am

For the past two and a half years my brother John has been living next door to me in the…

I think I’ve found a miracle cure for a bad back

3 January 2015 9:00 am

I’ve had various ailments during my first 74 years — the worst being those induced by smoking, such as emphysema…

Without Jesus and with less Santa, what does Christmas mostly consist of?

13 December 2014 9:00 am

More than ever this year I find friends planning to go abroad for Christmas, some to countries such as India…

Will anyone admit to being in the establishment? (No, not you, David Mellor)

6 December 2014 9:00 am

This is a tremendous time for ‘ordinary’ people. The elitists, the members of the ‘establishment’, are all on the run.…

Westminster Abbey was a fitting setting in which to celebrate the life of Winston Churchill’s last child

29 November 2014 9:00 am

The Times has given way to the Daily Telegraph as the bastion of the established order, for— with the one…

Lottery winners are strikingly unimaginative about spending money

22 November 2014 9:00 am

I thought that this week I might write about memory loss, but couldn’t remember if I’d written about it last…

A trip to Berlin with John Smith before the wall came down

15 November 2014 9:00 am

Last Sunday night 8,000 illuminated balloons, tethered along eight miles of Berlin’s former inner-city border between East and West Germany,…

Two ways to disgrace a president

8 November 2014 9:00 am

On 21 October Ben Bradlee, the famous ex-editor of the Washington Post, died, aged 93. The day before that, on…

The only good thing about Halloween is that it makes people hate bats

1 November 2014 9:00 am

I always dread Hallowe’en. It may have originated in Europe as a Christian celebration for remembering the virtuous dead and…

If you don't like this stupid survey, there'll be a contradictory one along in a minute

25 October 2014 9:00 am

Perhaps it is because newspapers are going through such hard times that they fill their pages with items that cost…