Life
Vicarious celebrations
I am occasionally teased. In a column devoted to drink, which in practice usually means wine and often the products…
The trans rights conflict doesn’t add up
Last week, the Office for National Statistics published the data on gender identity in England and Wales, as revealed in…
The magic of Veterans’ Chase Day
Like most people in racing I began 2023 down in the dumps, moaning about insufficient prize money, small fields and…
My deliriously happy primary school days
I remember my first day at South Benfleet County Primary School with rare clarity. My mother left me at the…
Aussie life
There has been some high-brow analysis of Australian boganhood recently. The 2022 compilation of essays, Class in Australia, where writers…
Language
The latest edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (published by Merriam-Webster) has now appeared – and it contains 500…
You’ve got mail
In Competition No. 3280, you were invited to submit an updating of W.H. Auden’s ‘Night Mail’ entitled ‘Email’. ‘Night Mail’…
Rich pickings
Alex Dilling at the Hotel Café Royal is a minute restaurant above Regent Street, which has the type of British…
Duck à l’orange
Duck à l’orange is so deliciously retro, it’s almost a cliché of kitsch. It seems hard to believe that there…
The spirit of Pele and Bobby Moore
Norwich City are a likeable club, and currently run by a pleasant-seeming bloke called Allan Russell. He used to be…
Our lovely miserable minibreak
Caroline likes to rent somewhere on Airbnb between Christmas and new year to break up the winter holiday. No, not…
Low life
Throughout the flat, post-Christmas limbo I lay languishing after another dollop of chemotherapy and read my Christmas present, Thomas Mann’s…
