dementia
How is Arnold Wesker’s Roots, which resembles an Archers episode, considered a classic?
The Almeida wants to examine the ‘Angry Young Man’ phenomenon of the 1950s but the term ‘man’ seems to create…
Watch three irascible women screaming at each other: Anthropology, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
Anthropology is a drama about artificial intelligence that starts as an ultra-gloomy soap opera. A suicidal lesbian, Merril, speaks on…
Tucci and Firth are like Eric and Ernie but sexier: Supernova reviewed
At the time Supernova went into production one headline read: ‘What did we do to deserve a love story starring…
Godot Is a Woman will have you laughing all evening and arguing all night
Godot Is a Woman opens with three tramps standing on a bare stage beneath a solitary upright. This isn’t Samuel…
Anthony Hopkins's portrayal of dementia will undo you: The Father reviewed
The Father is an immensely powerful film about dementia starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, who was asleep in his bed in…
The myriad signatures of a canine pissoir
Sally (la Sal, the Salster) is part whippet, part Labrador and part dormouse. She is 16 years old, stone deaf,…
Looking for love: Ghosts, by Dolly Alderton
Of all the successful modern female writers documenting their search for love, none has been as endearing as Dolly Alderton.…
My mother — as I remember her best
Nine cups of milky Nescafé Gold Blend a day; a low-tar cigarette smouldering; a hot-water-bottle always on her lap; the…
Jan Morris, at 93, meditates on what it means to be old
‘I’m getting rather tired of me,’ begins Jan Morris in one of the diary entries in Thinking Again, almost certainly…
Letters: Should conservatives be worried that high-spending Boris has a majority?
My father’s imprisonment Sir: Harald Maass’s piece on the plight of Uyghurs in China (‘A cultural genocide’, December 14) captures…
Wisdom of the ages: we must keep listening to the elderly
My beloved grandmother died at 90, and my mother at 89, after having Alzheimer’s for 11 years. So I am…
A frank description of dementia is a searing, suffocating read
In Annie Ernaux’s The Years — her extraordinary act of collective autobiography —the ‘I’ disappears. Her memoir becomes the memoir…
Everything under the sun: The glory of garden centres
Don’t you just love garden centres? You have to be mad to go on a sunny Sunday morning in the…
The upsides of dementia: Forgetfulness can be a blessing
My 91-year-old father-in-law has always had a terror of hospitals. This dates from his time as a Royal Marine when,…
Train your brain: How to keep your mind young
‘Beep!’ This is one of the most maddening computer games I’ve ever played. I’m tracking a flock of birds, and…
I ended New Year’s Eve more sober than I started it
We were eight for dinner on New Year’s Eve: four men and four women with a combined age, I would…
We lost our elderly, dementing French charge
I entered the cave house carrying groceries and panting from the climb to find an old hippie woman displaying rugs…
Speed limit
Slow radio is popping up everywhere at the moment — programmes that have no outward form but just meander through…
Wasn’t Lawrence of Arabia more annoying than this new play suggests?
T.E. Lawrence is like the gap-year student from hell. He visits a country full of exotic barbarians and after a…
Spectator letters: What might have been for young Boris and Dave
What might have been Sir: Harry Mount points out that Boris Johnson is two years older than David Cameron (Diary,…
Spectator letters: Mental health and assisted dying
Suicide and assisted dying Sir: As a mental health practitioner, I am grateful to Douglas Murray (‘Death watch’, 29 August)…
Why sound beats image when it comes to memory
It’s often not visual images that stimulate memory but a smell, a taste, the sound of pebbles crashing on to…
Britain has the lowest percentage of women engineers in Europe. Why?
‘It’s hard to know how to tell this story,’ she said as she began. ‘Because it’s so loaded. It’s so…
Sorry Katie Hopkins, but I’m not dieting. Ever
Why I am not dieting. Ever
Farewell, Speccie
So we are all going to have to pay for fatties to have stomach bands and bypasses, are we? It…
