Albania
Letters: What is the Chancellor trying to achieve?
Zero-sum game Sir: Though troubled by the impact of Budget measures on employers and economic growth, I am more baffled…
Albania has long lived in Italy’s shadow
Albanians are descended from the most ancient of European peoples, the Illyrians. The country came into existence only after 1912…
Lord Byron had many faults, but writing dull letters wasn’t one of them
Andrew Stauffer traces the poet’s tumultuous life through some of the most remarkable missives in the English language
Do all MI6 men wear such quirky cufflinks?
‘You’re late. About four years too late.’ The lady in the car-hire office gave a casual shrug and turned her…
The rotten legacy of communism in Albania
Our heavily laden taxi turned off the main highway from Tirana and started to negotiate the rough, one-track road. The…
Why I wanted to be called C.H. Moore
There are, one must admit, things to be said against Boris Johnson, but his leading critics do not understand that…
Real life
The Albanian builders have started a turf war in my kitchen. The hostilities broke out suddenly. One minute the builders…
A Girl in Exile: Ismail Kadare’s novel is full of absence
My last review for The Spectator was of Julian Barnes’s biographical novel about Shostakovitch. A Girl in Exile also depicts…
Sorry, but I can’t join in the China panic (especially not while I’m on a cruise)
MS Queen Victoria, 38°N 19°E I’ll do my best, but I’ve got to be honest: being surrounded by shining Ionian…
I don’t think it’s over in the Balkans
I returned last week from a short break in the Balkans; travelling by train in Serbia, walking from village to…
