Bob Geldof

We’re wrong to mock Do They Know It’s Christmas?

30 November 2024 9:00 am

‘I hope we passed the audition,’ said an alarmingly youthful Bob Geldof at one point in The Making of Do…

The nightmare of making films about poets

21 May 2022 9:00 am

Craig Raine on the challenges of translating poets’ lives and work to the screen

The Olympics have become a celebration of human frailty

14 August 2021 9:00 am

Coronis Embracing one’s vulnerability seems to have replaced the higher, faster, stronger ethos of the Olympics. The very frailty that…

Why Mick Jagger is an insult to rock

15 May 2021 9:00 am

New York Orthodox Easter Sunday came late in May this year, and I spent it at an old friend’s Fifth…

Dysfunctional music for dysfunctional people: The Public Image is Rotten reviewed

4 July 2020 9:00 am

A star is born, but instead of emerging into the world beaming for the cameras, he spits and snarls and…

The joys of social isolation

21 March 2020 9:00 am

No use datelining any more, I’m here for the duration. Even the ski lifts have been ordered to close: chiuso,…

Remembering Tim Hoare – a man like no other

14 September 2019 9:00 am

He was a Falstaff in his drinking and in his celebration of life, but his greatness lay in his friendships.…

Credit: scaliger

Standing on the Acropolis brings out the Greek in me

10 August 2019 9:00 am

Athens I am struggling up the slippery marble steps of the Acropolis with the Geldofs and the Bismarcks. We gaze…

Words of wisdom, and plenty of them, from the Irishman who saved Africa

Chatting to Bob Geldof about Boris and Brexit

3 August 2019 9:00 am

Coronis   We are steaming on Puritan towards the private isle of Coronis for a long Pugs weekend and the…

High life

23 September 2017 9:00 am

As everyone who stands up when a lady enters the room knows, the once sacrosanct rules of civility throughout the…

BBC4’s Bob Geldof on WB Yeats was one of the best literary documentaries I’ve seen

9 April 2016 9:00 am

In recent years there’s been a fashion for arts documentaries presented by celebs rather than boring old experts — presumably…

Rybolovlev with the Picassos

Hurrah! Demi Moore is Pugs club’s new Mistress of Chamber

3 October 2015 9:00 am

If cheating is the cancer of sport, losing has to be its halitosis. I stunk out the joint in Amsterdam…

Actually, Bob, they do know it’s Christmas (we checked)

22 November 2014 9:00 am

Yeah, Bob, they know The answer to the rhetorical question posed by the Band Aid single, ‘Do they know it’s…

Coming soon: my engagement to Kristin Scott Thomas

21 June 2014 9:00 am

As everyone who has ever joined a club knows, Pugs is the world’s most exclusive one, its members ranging from…

The death of three young people I knew

26 April 2014 9:00 am

New York The poet was right: April is the cruellest month. We at The Spectator lost Clarissa Tan, my good…

The Spectator’s Notes: In defence of Maria Miller

12 April 2014 9:00 am

Maria Miller’s forced resignation is a disgrace. No iniquity was proved against her. Over her expenses, I suspect her motive…