Notebook

Here in freezing Chicago we’re secretly rooting for global warming

9 February 2019 9:00 am

One of the few pleasures of advancing age is that, no matter how awful some looming catastrophe may be, you…

Fear and foie gras: a Caracas notebook

2 February 2019 9:00 am

A man stopped me in the street in Caracas and grabbed my hand. I was alarmed, but tried not to…

Davos diary: A party conference for the guilty rich

26 January 2019 9:00 am

Somehow I had managed more than a quarter of a century in journalism without ever going to Davos. It had…

What happens when the police stop and search a bishop?

15 December 2018 9:00 am

I’m not surprised that black people are still eight times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched…

Women, married or single, get a raw deal at Christmas

15 December 2018 9:00 am

There’s a Christmas poem of mine, written in the 1980s, that ends with the line ‘And the whole business is…

The best thing about Christmas in France? It’s all over in a day

15 December 2018 9:00 am

Just back from a few days in Rome — the perfect small metropolis for ‘street-haunting’, as Cyril Connolly described his…

Cressida Bonas: An actress’s notebook

15 December 2018 9:00 am

I’m moving house, parting ways with my beloved friend Georgia. For eight years, the two of us have laughed madly,…

Durban Notebook: a nation in paralysis

20 October 2018 9:00 am

No one likes uncertainty and in Britain we’ve got more than our fair share. But spare a thought for South…

As Assad recovers, Syria is returning to stability

13 October 2018 9:00 am

In order to avoid the Labour conference and yet more predictable media attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, I escaped late last…

Douglas Murray: I can’t think of a time when more people have lost their minds

1 September 2018 9:00 am

Whenever I visit a country I try to pitch high and meet the president or prime minister. In Australia this…

Rory Bremner: Why comedians are getting political

25 August 2018 9:00 am

The brilliant Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell describes doing stand-up at the Edinburgh Fringe as ‘exams for clowns’, and even though…

The sensuous thrill of learning to swim in your sixties

4 August 2018 9:00 am

Sharing a plate of oysters with a three-year-old: where could this be but France, where children are brought up not…

The view from Paris: ‘Why are Brexiteers so stupid?’

28 July 2018 9:00 am

‘Problème est masculin; solution est féminine,’ says Brigitte, the adored French teacher at the British embassy in Paris. Good way…

Donald Trump is coming to Blenheim – and the protesters are ready

14 July 2018 9:00 am

For more than 40 years we’ve lived in a beautiful, listed, Cotswold stone, Stonesfield slate-roofed farmhouse in Oxfordshire. The trouble…

Notes from Jerusalem: Everyone is in love with Donald Trump

19 May 2018 9:00 am

‘Trump Make Israel Great’ reads the banner on the deserted hotel next to the new American embassy in Jerusalem. Unlike…

What The Spectator’s 48-year-old intern did next

12 May 2018 9:00 am

To anyone who has dreamed of becoming a journalist, the thrill of walking into a national newspaper office never goes…

My life in Paris as a Diplomatic Wag

28 April 2018 9:00 am

The French President says he wants to rule as a Jupiter — but he doesn’t look like a Jupiter to…

Not one of my Harvard students thinks Brexit is a good idea

21 April 2018 9:00 am

My wife laughs that my love of gadgets is a remnant of my Communist upbringing, when western toys were objects…

Gambia is like a real-life Tinder for geriatrics

14 April 2018 9:00 am

When Facebook and co stop selling on our details to third parties, will it be the end of spam? For…

I take no pleasure in seeing England get all out for 58

7 April 2018 9:00 am

‘Ah, the old man injury!’ That’s what people said when I busted my calf a couple of years ago. At…

I averted the wrath of the students by telling them I’d had a sex change

31 March 2018 9:00 am

I went to Australia with my constant companion Hilary, the only woman in England I’m not paying alimony to. She…

South Africa Notebook: After Zuma’s fall, and life on the Little Karoo

24 February 2018 9:00 am

In recent years, living in South Africa has been a bit like having cancer. The malaise eating us from within…

Michael Moorcock: Why banning opioids has been a disaster for me

10 February 2018 9:00 am

Returning to the United States a short while ago I received a stern talking to from an immigration officer. Why…

How I’d sex down the weather forecast

16 December 2017 9:00 am

I have, for utterly explicable reasons, not been asked to guest-edit Radio 4’s Today this Christmas. Had I, though, I would…

I’m teaching my kids about money – by searching for buried treasure

16 December 2017 9:00 am

At the end of each year I pull out most of the New Year’s resolutions I’ve ever made — I…