Humour
Dear Mary: Is there any way to wriggle out of a phone invitation?
Q. Is there a tactful way to keep one social offer on hold while waiting to see if you have…
Was Flann O'Brien at his best when writing about drink? (Answers on a damp stressed envelope, please)
On his deathbed in Dublin in the spring of 1966, Flann O’Brien must have been squiffy from tots of Paddy.…
Dear Mary: How to stop cinema iPhone pests
Q. At a private screening of a documentary about the artist David Bomberg, a woman sitting near me in the…
Global warming's glorious ship of fools
Eco-warriors stranded in the Antarctic! It’s too good to be true
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…
Curtains for kitty! How to care for cats — and how to kill them
The New Yorker has always had a peculiar affinity with cats, perhaps because they have a lot in common —…
Hugo Rifkind's My Week reminds me why it's worth getting up on Saturdays
‘Nothing’s funny any more’ has become the daily mantra of this magazine’s cartoon editor, Michael Heath. Thanks to Leveson, political…
Through It All I’ve Always Laughed, by Count Arthur Strong - review
Fans of Count Arthur Strong (and yes I know he’s so Marmite you could spread him on a cheese sandwich)…
One Leg Too Few may be one biography too many
It’s no joke, writing about comedians. Their work is funny, their lives are not. Rightly honouring the former while accurately…
The best funny books for Christmas
Books do furnish a room, and quirky books for Christmas do furnish an enormous warehouse somewhere within easy reach of…
My 50 weddings
The lessons of a perpetual guest
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?…
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.…
Dear Mary: What must I do to reclaim the best poolside chair?
Q. I know this seems petty but last year, on our villa holiday, my brother-in-law always took the best chair…
Mind your language: Who says there's a 'correct name' for the penis?
In a very rum letter to the Daily Telegraph, the Mother’s Union of all people joined with some other bodies…
Dear Mary: Why it's fine to crash funerals
Q. Regarding the writing of ‘no presents’ on an invitation (Dear Mary, 6 July), my own experience is that many…
Dear Mary: How can I stop friends from coming to my book launch?
Q. I have far too many friends to be able to invite them all to my forthcoming book launch. How…
It’s the secret of a successful marriage: my wife treats me like a dog
‘Here, Wolf,’ says the Fawn to me, showing me a saucer. ‘Look at this! This is the new place where…
Is my rod big enough? Boris Johnson’s fishing notebook
You remember the climax of Jaws — the primeval moment when Quint the crazed Ahab-like fisherman goes mano a mano…
Dear Mary: How can I stop my friends giving me Christmas presents?
Q. Over the years my close friends locally have been giving each other birthday and Christmas presents. Now, as I…
