Life
Dear Mary: How do I shake off charity collectors?
Q. A friend, who I love dearly and who comes to stay a lot, has always been unforthcoming with gifts.…
Mickleover: the real home of cricket
Readers concerned that the seemingly imperious march of Bazball across the cricket firmament has blotted out the more, er, traditional…
The no-bake bliss of icebox cake
Standing in the biscuit aisle of my local supermarket, I’m overwhelmed by possibilities. This isn’t unusual for me, but normally…
The new dilemma facing racehorse trainers
There is a new dilemma for racehorse trainers. ‘What do I do?’ some of them are now worrying. ‘Do I…
Labour’s backwards steps on free speech
Free speech advocates like me need to stop talking about the meagre gains we made under the last government because…
Curiously understated: Porthminster Kitchen reviewed
Porthminster Kitchen sits above Warren’s Bakery on St Ives Harbour, like a paradigm of the British class system in food.…
Language
Speccie reader John is puzzled by an American expression that we’ve heard only recently in Australia: when a politician is…
Aussie life
You can take the boy out of advertising, but you can’t take the copywriter out of the middle-aged man. I…
How to exploit a crisis
The phrase ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ is often attributed to Winston Churchill, but it’s something the…
Dear Mary: How do I avoid my neighbours on holiday?
Q. We have some neighbours who we don’t mind at all – they are perfectly nice, just not part of…
Lucy Letby and the problem with statistics
First Fred West, now Lucy Letby. At this rate, it won’t be long before Herefordshire has produced more serial killers…
When did monkeypox become ‘mpox’?
Writing about monkeypox in The Spectator in May 2022, Douglas Murray repeated a formula he had put forward in 2020,…
The treasures of sherry
We were talking Spain and drinking Spanish. The UK and Spain are very different societies, but we did find points…
