Everyday life
Agitprop for toddlers: the oddly strident politics of CBeebies
The oddly strident politics of CBeebies
Clarissa Tan's Notebook: Why I stopped drinking petrol
Florence was in fog the day I arrived. Its buildings were bathed in white cloud, its people moved as though…
Dear Mary: How can I escape my neighbour’s spy cameras?
Q. I have a problem with what might be called location blindness. I live in Balham, but when I arrange…
Why should Nigel Farage have to fight the ghost of Enoch Powell?
One of the genuine seasonal pleasures to be enjoyed as 2013 slipped around the U-bend was Enoch Powell making his…
Dear Mary: What should I do when my dinner guests dive for their iPads?
Q. We had our son’s fiancée and her family to stay recently. After dinner, expecting conversation, we were shocked to…
Tanya Gold: Child-friendly, sex-free, nut-heavy – just the hotel for my 40th birthday
Woolley Grange is a child-friendly country house hotel that seems, at first, entirely monstrous — a grey Tudor house in…
Celia Walden's diary: Have I finally caught my husband in an affair?
For a minute I just stood there with my back against the wall, staring at the credit card receipt. Then…
Nancy Dell'Olio: Englishmen can't flirt (except for Russell Brand)
Why can’t British men flirt? This was one of my first thoughts when I arrived in England some years ago.…
How can I be a member of the Chipping Norton set?
Q. I am working on becoming a member of the Chipping Norton set. Should I be pronouncing the excellent open-air…
My 50 weddings
The lessons of a perpetual guest
Dear Mary: How can I make my host pour me a drink?
Q. Some years ago, on holiday in Egypt, we found ourselves in the company of a couple who wanted to…
The importance of not being called Nigel
The importance of not being Nigel
Dear Mary: The rules of wearing a dressing gown
Q. What to do when you are an unwilling eavesdropper in a train carriage in which people you know assume…
Andrew Marr’s diary: Holidays after a stroke, and what the Germans really think of us
It’s been a strange summer. After a stroke, holidays are not what they used to be. We went to Juan-les-Pins…
Jeremy Clarke: The day I walked into a postcard
This time last year the postman delivered a picture postcard depicting a village square in Provence. The photograph on the…
Dear Mary: How can I stop this bore reading his novel aloud?
Q. Is there a polite way of halting a wannabe novelist from reading his oeuvre aloud to an unwilling audience?…
In defence of binge drinking
The occasional alcoholic blowout is much to be preferred to steady, everyday drinking
Never seen the need for a class system? Take a long-haul flight
Usually it is annoying when you have to board an aeroplane via a shuttle bus rather than an airbridge. The…
Dear Mary: How will I know if he really loves me?
Q. To ask for money in lieu of a wedding present (Dear Mary, 3 August) is ghastly, but an established…
Roger Scruton’s diary: Finding Scrutopia in the Czech Republic
Hay-making was easy this year, and over in good time for a holiday. I am opposed to holidays, having worked…
Gay civil partners should resist pressure to 'upgrade' to marriage
Apparently I’ve proposed to my civil partner. He claims that on BBC Radio 2, on the Jeremy Vine show (he…
Dear Mary: How can I tell her that her table manners are disgusting?
Q. My mainly male colleagues and I were happy to learn that an attractive young woman would be joining the…
What a tortoise can teach us
Five lessons from my new pet
Douglas Murray’s diary: My gay wedding dance-off with Julie Burchill
The pilot refuses to get going until everyone is seated and quiet. When we take off there are raucous cheers.…
I’m sick of sponsoring you to suffer
Every charitable donation now seems to come with a promise to suffer
