2,500 years of gyms (and you’re still better off walking the dog)
My favourite fact about gyms before reading this book was that the average British gym member covers 468 miles per…
Attack of the personal space invaders
Who are these chaps who insist on standing so close?
Why tomorrow’s parents won’t want their children to go to university
Why being a graduate is about to lose its prestige
Check yourself: have you succumbed to this corporate speak epidemic?
Is there any cure for this piece of corporate speak?
A museum of dirty postcards and Britain’s coolest bulldog: visit the strange side of the Isle of Wight
Every day the Isle of Wight becomes England’s smallest county: when-ever the tide comes in, the island steals the crown…
Life is full of little endings. We should pay them more attention
Life is full of little endings. We should pay them more attention
Did anyone ever really love Bob Hope?
Why does everything these days have to be a superlative? Why must writers scream for our attention, yelling that the…
The deep Britishness of fish and chips
During the D-day landings, members of the parachute regiment, finding themselves behind enemy lines at night, needed a way of…
A compendium to match Radio 4: boring, but somehow gripping
When you think about it, Radio 4 is mostly a pile of old toss. Money Box qualifies as an anaesthetic,…
The images from the Apollo missions will reduce you to tears
Mark Mason on the images that make grown men cry
Switching on to a new generation gap
In the world of YouTube and Netflix, generations no longer share a culture
Nira Alpina, St Moritz: A cool Alpine hotel that's perfect for the under-tens
It’s a terrible moment, the realisation that you’ve spawned a monster. Parenthood, it becomes clear, has wiped stylish holidays off…
What’s wrong with sunglasses
People who wear sunglasses all the time seem to radiate disdain
From prisons to offices to police stations – London's turning everything into hotels
The test of a truly great city is reinvention. Does it have the courage to change? London holds a PhD…
When Geoff Boycott was a DJ in a Sydney nightclub
Sport isn’t about putting a ball into a net or over a bar or into a hole. It’s about the…
Kindles will kill off the bookish loner (thank God)
Kindle highlights turn the lonely pleasures of reading into a communal event
When the English cricket team toured Nazi Germany – and got smashed
Why have the Germans never been any good at cricket? This entertaining account of the MCC’s 1937 tour to the…
Subterranea is sexy
The strange fascination of tunnels and bunkers
The train stations that don’t really exist
In 1964, as part of his railway cuts, Dr Beeching ordered the closure of Duncraig, a small, little-used station in…
Mortar fire, weddings, camels, the French revolution: all kind of things get in the way of cricket
It isn’t just the elk, either. Also bringing proceedings to a halt in this wonderful anthology are camels (Bahrain), cows…
Whistling is a bloody nuisance
Paul McCartney says he can remember the exact moment he knew the Beatles had made it. Early one morning, getting…
What other job lets you swear in front of your parents?
There aren’t many jobs that allow a nice middle-class Jewish boy to say ‘fuck’ in front of his parents. But…
The comedy club theory of dictatorship
The comedy club theory of dictatorship
Through It All I’ve Always Laughed, by Count Arthur Strong - review
Fans of Count Arthur Strong (and yes I know he’s so Marmite you could spread him on a cheese sandwich)…
When 'drop-dead gorgeous' women actually dropped dead
No one watches Antiques Roadshow for the antiques. Instead we’re hanging on the punter’s reaction to his three-grand valuation. ‘It…
