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Triumph of the Taleban: the unfolding disaster in Afghanistan
Their patience is paying off
I’m calling my removal from office ‘the great betrayal’
I’ve always maintained I go to Fermanagh for sanity, and after the past few months, I need a return to…
Pure, white and native: the birch as a symbol of Russian nationalism
The image of the birch tree in popular Russian culture is as manifold as the trees themselves, but we could…
Jason Ricci is my mentor, guru and anointed one
A second week recovering in bed in this pleasant south-facing bedroom. If I sit up, my back resting against whitewashed…
Air travel is in terminal danger
During the political car crash of 2019, I couldn’t imagine ever agreeing with Theresa May. Yet last week she exhibited…
A nicer side of Nero
New York I haven’t felt such shirt-dripping, mind-clogging wet heat since Saigon back in 1971. The Bagel is a steam…
British broadcast news has gone badly wrong
I’ve worked for some media thoroughbreds — including the Financial Times, ITN and CNN — so I know the sense…
A breath of fresh airwaves
A couple of decades back the Radio Society asked me to moderate a debate for its summer festival. ‘Between who?’…
The Sun goes down
Where did it all go wrong for the Sun?
The Covid Macguffin
Why do current events read like a bad movie?
Being pro-Trump has caused me more grief than being Bin Laden’s niece
Americans are, in my experience, the warmest, most kind-hearted and open-minded people in the world. I have found this to…
How to get into a club and on to a plane
Disaster struck the Young family last Friday. My 12-year-old son Charlie woke up with a temperature. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t matter,…
Rules for a deconfinement dinner party
The most visible local landmark is a solitary two-headed Jurassic mountain called Le Bessillon, six miles long and 800 metres…
What no one tells you about owning a horse
When people ask me what I did during lockdown, I would like to give an inspiring answer, apart from growing…
Switzerland is now an enemy of the rich
Gstaad The staff are back and all is well, as they used to say long ago in faraway places. The…
Envy is the greatest blight of all
Gstaad Hippocrates is known as the father of Western medicine and he discovered and named a disease known as ‘micropoulaki’…
My first post-lockdown party
France is divided into a red zone and a green zone. We’re green. Green for go. From this morning we…
Lockdown is making a Lib Dem of me
If this lockdown doesn’t end soon we are all going to turn into hairy lefties. I have just cut the…
I salute Professor Neil Ferguson
Gstaad Let me begin with a salute to the winner of this year’s Sir Jimmy Goldsmith prize: Professor Neil Ferguson.…
In praise of French doctors
They made a better job of sorting out my waterworks
My toilet ultimatum to the builder boyfriend
The rain showers had a strange and wondrous effect. All the cyclists, joggers and dog walkers that were coming from…
I’m imposing a one-woman trade embargo on China
Without making any efforts in that direction, I now know all about a certain telecom firm’s future business plans. My…
The night I danced with Ginger Rogers
Gstaad When indolence becomes intolerable, remembrances of things past become a lifesaver. Charles Moore’s SpectatorNotes also helps. His recent…
How the French view their weekly clap for carers
Once a week we break French emergency law and have a friend round for drinks on the terrace. The terrace…
Writing my High Life column made a man of me
As Cole Porter might have said, only second-rate people go on and on about their inner lives. Self-analysis, according to…
