Life
How I lost my faith
God used to exist. He doesn’t any more, but back in the early 1970s he was a major presence in…
My hopes for Africa
Lake Malawi As we speed southwards along the potholed road near Lake Malawi’s shores, I tell my colleague Helen that…
Why can’t I just buy a boardgame?
The little toy shop stood at the highest point of a steep winding lane of shops all painted different colours,…
Kiwi life
New Zealand’s overwhelmingly left-wing news media remain in a collective sulk over last year’s election of the centre-right government led…
Language
Kamala Harris keeps telling us she wants ‘equity’ not ‘equality.’ What does she mean? She is using ‘equality’ to means…
What’s the right way to voyage?
My husband has ordered a copy of Craig Brown’s new book, out next week, a bit late for my birthday.…
I was wrong about staycations
I hadn’t intended to go on a ‘staycation’ this summer. Quite the contrary, I’d booked a family holiday to Norway.…
Dear Mary: how do I hide my pregnancy from my boozy friends?
Q. We love having friends to stay at our house in Cornwall. One particular guest has the habit of arriving…
The simple beauty of the Hundred
Time to come clean: I really like the Hundred. This is the sort of view that normally makes people look…
A slice of Paris in Crouch End: Bistro Aix reviewed
There is a wonderful cognitive dissonance to Bistro Aix. It thinks it is in Paris but it is really in…
2668: Obit VII
Clockwise round the grid from the square between 3 and 4 run the names (forename and surname) of four eminent…
The fun of the Shergar Cup
Gary Lineker once summed up football as ‘a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at…
Why can no one find the eye hospital?
‘Where’s the eye hospital?’ shouted pretty much everyone standing outside a building signposted eye hospital in Irish. ‘An tAonad Oftailmeolaiochta’…
My Egyptian mau pyramid scheme
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna Was it chance or destiny, I wonder, that caused the eldest of our six children, Caterina, to…
American salads are weird – but an egg salad is perfect
The Americans are weird about salad. I’m sorry, but somebody had to say it. Really, their use of the word…
Spectator Competition: August society
In Competition 3363 you were invited to write a poem about holidaymakers from a local’s perspective. Thanks to Paul Freeman…
Hans Niemann against the World
For the irrepressible Hans Niemann, August is no time to chill. The 21-year-old American grandmaster began the month by defeating his…
Aussie life
O wad some pow’r the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us! said Robbie Burns. And nobody…
Language
There are times when I am tempted to think that English, in general terms, is richer and more colourful than…
