Features
Red faces
How to celebrate the centenary of the Russian revolutions of 1917? Modern Russians are deeply divided over the legacy of…
Dumb and dumber
Katie Hopkins did something dreadful this week, which is not unusual, because she craves such things. She retweeted praise —…
The Atomoxetine year
Driving my son’s snake, Todd, a 3ft python wrapped in a pillowcase, to a Brighton vet in August was child’s…
Taught to be stupid
Enough! Enough! For months, the so-called liberal elite has been writing articles, having radio and TV discussions, giving sermons (literally)…
Not cricket
Sport is a serious matter. If you have any doubts on that score, shed them now, because this is to…
Pub quizzes
For more than 20 years now, I have been trudging up the hill to the Prince of Wales in Highgate…
Get ready for a wild ride
Every American president since Harry Truman has arrived in the White House committed to globalism — a belief that America…
Pub quizzes
For more than 20 years now, I have been trudging up the hill to the Prince of Wales in Highgate…
Morocco: A match made in heaven
I’m sitting by the pool in a lush Moroccan garden playing chess with Nigel Short, and I feel like an…
Populism vs post-democracy
Europeans are usually alarmed or sniffy about American concern for democracy’s fate, but this time liberal opinion on both sides…
Europe’s year of insurgency
After the tumult of 2016, Europe could do with a year of calm. It won’t get one. Elections are to…
Positively Trumpian
This being the time of year for it, you’re probably thinking what form your New Year New You will take.…
Switzerland: What makes Geneva tick
In a quiet backstreet in Geneva, a few blocks from the lakeside, there is a museum which will change the…
Looking homeward
Batavia, New York The presidential campaign just ended was mercifully lacking in the ghostwritten platitudes with which Franklin D. Roosevelt,…
The real Brexit risk
At the Westfield shopping centre in east London, the queues started at 2 a.m. on Christmas night. In Wrexham, people started…
A different class of snob
‘Ah, beware of snobbery,’ said Cary Grant, who was surprisingly often the smartest guy in the room. ‘It is the unwelcome recognition…
Italy: I’ve got Rome on repeat
My year was topped and tailed with trips to Rome. In March, as the blossom unfurled along the Tiber and…
How to beat terrorism
Until a few years ago, Pakistan was one of the most dangerous countries on earth. The tribal areas in the…
Sweden: Multiple thrills, minimal risk
All too often in life there’s a gap between expectation and reality. Not with driving on ice. The expectation is…
Seaham Hall
I’m standing in milady’s boudoir, a room which would have delighted Liberace. Here, nothing is de trop and everything is…
Hangovers
Although drinking excessive levels of alcohol is up there with Olympic cycling and democracy as things the British excel at,…
Wildlife Notebook
The morning is cold and dark but the orchard is thronged with birds. Moorhens dash from one side to the…
A radical mistake
In the early 1990s, after the shock of the 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie, I began to do some research…
Traveller’s Notebook
I was drinking in the bar of Manhattan’s Nomad Hotel when in snuck The Most Seen Human Ever To Have…
Notebook
One remark from the Christmas party season knocks insistently around my head. It came from Nigel Farage on a staircase…
