The Spectator
Australia
Fossil fuels fuel gold, silver & bronze
As Australians quite rightly revel in our multiple successes at the Tokyo Olympics where we are not only ranked (at…
Australian Columnists
Brown Study
It was very odd that last week, when all the nightclubs and gin palaces of Melbourne were closed, a new…
Australian Features
Is Grattan. Is Good.
Is our lack of reform really ‘gridlock’ or simply the rejection of dud policies?
Features
The awe-inspiring appeal of aquariums
Fish tanks were probably first conceived in the distant past by the Chinese, but in many respects, aquariums are a…
‘I’m plagued by worries of disaster’: an interview with Dominic Cummings
Dominic Cummings on asteroids, AI and leaving No. 10
Italians are seeing red over the Covid ‘Green Pass’
Italy’s Covid certificate is dividing the country
The heist: nobody is safe from Russia’s digital pirates
Ransomware attacks are a threat to us all
Why I gave up writing fiction
When, three years ago, I announced my retirement from writing fiction, the only thing that surprised me was the surprise…
The Week
Portrait of the week: Vouchers for vaccines, cases rise in China and a Christmas baby for Boris and Carrie
Home After the number of people ‘pinged’ (alerted by an NHS Covid-19 app) neared 700,000, the app was adjusted so…
Which industries have the most workers still furloughed?
Happy valet Police Scotland dropped what they said was a randomly generated codeword — ‘Bunter’ — for the security operation…
Why is the mild West afraid to promote its democratic values?
An athlete seeking sanctuary in a foreign embassy after a state–sponsored attempt to spirit her home from the Olympics; a…
Letters: The problem with the ‘alpha migrants’
Here illegally Sir: Unfortunately, Charlotte Eagar misses the point (‘The alpha migrants’, 31 July). The Channel migrants may be ‘bright…
Simone Biles, Plutarch and an Olympic trial
The outstanding gymnast Simone Biles has pulled out of several Olympic events, saying: ‘I just don’t trust myself as much…
Should Simone Biles listen to Novak Djokovic?
I’ve always been a Spectator reader, so I’m delighted to be writing a diary about the Olympics from Tokyo. My…
Columnists
Putting the commie in committee
Last month an epidemiologist called Professor Michael Baker described the UK government’s decision to free its people from Covid restrictions…
Is it time for a Dad’s Army of lorry drivers?
Here’s a patriotic proposal: let’s form a Dad’s Army of lorry drivers, of which the Road Haulage Association reckons there’s…
How Nextdoor became the new Neighbourhood Watch
Long before the official numbers began to rise, back in 2014, it was clear that knife crime was on the…
Don’t pick a fight with the SNP
Since the Holyrood elections in May, the campaign for Scottish independence has been noticeably quiet. But that is about to…
Chris Packham’s suggestions to save the world
On Monday 2 August, the BBC Today programme offered its ‘Countdown to COP26’. For the rest of the month, Amol…
The path to re-enchantment
Most social occasions now seem to kick off with a wasted hour or two. The time is spent discussing Covid:…
Books
Lucy Ellmann is angry about everything, especially men
Is Lucy Ellmann serious? On the one hand, yes, very. The novel she published before this collection of essays was…
An interest in the bizarre helps keep melancholy at bay
Philip Hensher finds Robert Burton’s perception of the world and the human condition endlessly fascinating
The AI future looks positively rosy
In the future, men enjoying illicit private pleasures with their intelligent sexbots might be surprised to find that even women…
The Cambridge Greek Lexicon is an eye-opener for classical scholars
The great Latinist D.R. Shackleton Bailey was once said to have been pinned into a corner at a party and…
When family viewing was full of creeping menace
Strange, really, that the scheduled output of traditional broadcasters became known as ‘terrestrial’ television, given that TV is an etheric…
Startlingly sadistic: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, by Quentin Tarantino, reviewed
There’s no doubt that Quentin Tarantino is a movie director of brilliance, if not genius. But can he write? Well…
A true bohemian: the story of Nico’s rise and fall
It is well established that artists are not always the nicest people. On the surface, the life of the model,…
Gay abandon: Filthy Animals, by Brandon Taylor, reviewed
What does it mean to be a body in this world? It’s the question animating Brandon Taylor’s Filthy Animals. Our…
Heroes and villains of the pandemic in America
The most alarming aspect of living in America is the recurring sensation that no one is in charge. This is…
To appreciate Finnegans Wake you must hear its sounds and rhythms
‘How good you are in explosition!’ The first ever unabridged recording of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake is a monumental achievement…
The complex character of Tricky Dick
In this Age of Trump, as we cast about for some moment in American history that might help us make…
Funeral gatecrasher: The Black Dress, by Deborah Moggach, reviewed
Here is a rare dud from the usually reliable Deborah Moggach. Her protagonist, Pru, finds herself alone at 69 after…
Arts
Rose Byrne
‘Unemployed at last!’ That wonderful bit of national self-mockery that opens the classic Australian novel Such is Life takes on…
Ian McKellen is riveting: Hamlet, at Theatre Royal Windsor, reviewed
Ian McKellen in his early eighties plays the Dane in his mid-twenties. A production with such a strange innovation should…
The history of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane is the theatrical history of England
The newly renovated Theatre Royal Drury Lane has seen it all and staged it all, says Robert Gore-Langton
Mesmerising and monstrous: @zola reviewed
The distinction between on and offline life blurred long ago. The greatest spats, sexual self-fashionings and mad soliloquies now unfurl…
Hugely pleasurable – a vision of summer: Jennifer Packer at the Serpentine Gallery reviewed
We need to talk about Eric. In Jennifer Packer’s portrait of her friend and fellow artist, Eric N. Mack sits…
When musical collaborations go right – and when they go horribly wrong
Big Red Machine release their second album later this month. It’s a fine name for ten tonnes of agricultural apparatus…
Switch over to Eurosport: BBC's Olympic coverage reviewed
I’ve not been allowed anywhere near the TV remote control this week because of some kind of infernal sporting event…
Ecstasy from Birmingham Opera Company: Wagner's RhineGold reviewed
At the end of Birmingham Opera Company’s RhineGold, as the gods stood ready to enter Valhalla, Donner swung a baseball…
A podcast that listens to what anti-vaxxers think rather than lecturing them
Work is our new religion. There are people whose primary job is writing listicles of celebrity gossip, illustrated with gifs…
Life
Aussie Life
The voiceover says new ABC series Ms Represented is all about Australian women in politics but really it’s all about…
Aussie Language
When Kaylee McKeown won Olympic gold her comment on worldwide television became the headline. Her sister and mum were watching…
No. 665
White to play. Adhiban–Delgado Ramirez, Sochi 2021. White has more than one good move, but Adhiban found a spectacular way…
The Fide World Cup
As I write this, the Fide World Cup is underway in Sochi, the Black Sea resort in Russia which hosted…
What would Avery Ice Age have made of the Tokyo Olympics?
Avery Brundage was known to his enemies as Avery Ice Age — and to quite a few of his friends…
2518: Make a run for it?
11 Across (three words) is a phrase suggested by the puzzle’s title explaining how to arrive at the other unclued…
Have my suits shrunk in lockdown?
I hadn’t noticed how much weight I’d put on during lockdown until I went out for a business lunch a…
Dear Mary: How do we tell our interior designer relative we don’t want her doing up our house?
Q. I’ve just completed a six-month paid internship for a hedge fund manager. I was mostly in his private office…
2515: Paragon - solution
The name was Margaret, whose various versions are suggested by THE SPECTATOR (1: Mag), BARN OWL (10/36: Madge), LEAD HAMMER…
Spectator competition winners: poems inspired by the phonetic alphabet
In Competition No. 3210, you were invited to provide a poem or a piece of prose containing words from the…
Bridge | 7 August 2021
To be a killer bridge player, you need to be aggressive. Many of us are hampered by timidity, especially when…
The art of losing your hair
Although fatigued to the point of catatonia, and sitting there like a 19th-century Fang funeral mask, I am glad to…
An elegy on yachting
Patmos A very long time ago I wrote in these here pages that spending a summer on the Riviera or…
Proper racing is back at last
At last proper racing is back. Through the long days of lockdown horses and jockeys have still given their all…
The lost dogs of Surrey
The woman pulled up in her flashy 4×4 which was meandering along the farm track in that way people have…
The dirty truth about ‘wash-up’
‘They asked me if I wanted to wash up before we even went in to dinner,’ my husband recalled with…
High on the hog: The Pig at Bridge Place reviewed
The Pig at Bridge Place is not a pig in possession of a country house, but I would be for…