Life
The secret to making great oysters Rockefeller
There’s nothing more intriguing than a closely guarded secret recipe. Coca-Cola and KFC are two famous examples, with the precise…
My horse betting farce
Somebody up there doesn’t like me much at the moment. The bank insists that two cash machines which failed to…
How I found Love on Airbnb
‘My name is Love,’ typed the help assistant, ‘and I’m a member of the Airbnb community support team.’ I was…
Aussie life
‘When I was 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around,’ wrote Mark Twain,…
Convict life
In a country that loves its anti-heroes as much as it loves a pub yarn, we’re faced with an important…
Yvette Cooper wants to lock up your sons
In his independent review of the Prevent programme last year, Sir William Shawcross warned that something had gone very wrong…
Dear Mary: how can I stop guests waking too early?
Q. I meet a very old and dear friend for lunch on a regular basis. We meet at a lovely…
Beware the ‘sourdough effect’
As the joke goes, there are two ways to become a top judge. You can study law at university, then…
Alan Clark’s wines were as remarkable as he was
Où sont les bouteilles d’antan? For that matter, où sont les amis with whom one consumed them? These autumnally melancholic…
Confessions of a political gambler
What could be more exquisite than the life of the professional gambler? I began my career in 2016 with a…
Help! I don’t speak emoji
My friend replied to my text with seven sets of animal paw prints, interspersed with pink hearts and rounded off…
Spectator Competition: Space to think
Competition 3370 invited poems about the predicament of the Nasa astronauts stranded on the ISS – thanks to Paul Freeman…
Is it ever ok to call women ‘birds’?
Towards the end of the 1980s, Jeffrey Bernard, late of this magazine, sometimes used to wear grey shoes with jeans…
Aussie life
At the same time you were hearing about the second attempt on Donald Trump’s life, you can be sure that…
Language
Speccie reader Peter has written asking me to write something about ‘begs the question’, which, he says, is ‘regularly misused…
Why is it so hard to hire a car?
My passport and driving licence sat on the counter but the girl stared back at me, repeating her demand. ‘I…
