When the German novelist Sophie von La Roche visited Oxford Street in the 1780s she saw watchmakers and fan shops, silversmiths and spirit booths, and a Pantheon that rivalled the one in Rome. Edward Gibbon called the domed ballroom, which hosted glitzy concerts, ‘the wonder of the eighteenth century and of the British empire’, but
What the NHS needs Sir: James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson are right (‘The great Tory health splurge,’ 26 May): an extra 3 per cent will not solve the Tories’ political problem. Labour will still trumpet NHS deficiencies, waste will continue and the NHS will demand ever more resources. Only structural change will solve the problems
Patrick Heron’s paintings of the 1950s melt like ice creams. You want to run your tongue along the canvas and catch the drips. They capture a sense of summer holiday sea-and-scampi freedom. When Heron (1920–99) was five, his father, a blouse and silk-scarf manufacturer, moved from Leeds to St Ives in Cornwall. Heron played with
My Great Predecessors is an indispensable guide to the achievements, style and best games of the former world chess champions. It is a monumental series, consisting of five volumes, written by probably the greatest champion of them all, Garry Kasparov. In Modern Chess and Kasparov on Kasparov there are several more volumes, and in the latter
Black to play. This is from Paulsen-Morphy, New York 1857. Having sacrificed his queen to expose the white king, Morphy continued 1 …Bh3+ which was good enough to win. But there was a better move, forcing a quick mate. Can you see it? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 5 June or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk.
I’m back in New York and digesting the five glorious days spent in Normandy. What was the fighting all about, you may ask: was it about freedom, equality, cultural diversity, man’s dignity — all liberal catchphrases these days? Liberty and freedom are also big words nowadays, but all I see are massive central governments with
We were standing in the tiny hall: me, Catriona, Annette and her toy Yorkshire terrier, Ahmed. It was our first Airbnb booking and Annette was welcoming us to her humble home. She was a mature, careworn, attractive French woman with a modest disposition and she spoke pretty good English. Her husband would be coming back
Now I know how the Karate Kid felt. Two hours after I began oiling the newly laid deck in my garden, I could barely move my arms. Wax on, wax off, I kept repeating. I knelt until I had rib marks in my knees so deep they looked as though they might never come out.
Not many players can pull a fast one on Gunnar Hallberg. The seasoned Swede, who came to live over here 20 years ago, has a fearsome reputation, both internationally (representing Sweden, then England) and also at the rubber bridge table. For as long as I can remember, he’s been a regular in the high-stake game
I am currently in Brittany with the family, having made the 11-hour drive from London on Monday. It sounds like quite a lot of effort for a few days’ holiday, but my friend Wendy Steavenson invited us to stay and that so rarely happens when you’ve got four children that we felt we couldn’t turn
Q. I work at a desk by a window which looks out on to the street where I live. I am disturbed by the sight of the same Englishman strolling past the window innumerable times per day. I know most of my neighbours and he is not one of them. Who is he? I can’t
The Petersham is a fading hotel on Richmond Hill. I went to a bar mitzvah there in 1986, which gives you a good idea of how fashionable it is. I grew up near Petersham. I always thought it smelled of eternal summer, but it was the late 1970s. The Petersham is also a new restaurant
To understand how the European Union works, and how it doesn’t, it helps to think of it as an empire. Empires are not fashionable just now, but they have their uses. At their best — Rome, Britain — they are capable of upholding common standards, preserving peace and prosperity, and helping civilisation flourish. The EU
To find out why the poetry of Ebenezer Jones was thought execrably bad, I turned to The Spectator of September 13, 1879. It carried a review of a new edition (encouraged by Dante Gabriel Rossetti) of Jones’s Studies of Sensation and Event, first published in 1843 and mercilessly mocked. Poor Jones had been so upset
Predictably enough, there have been no calls this week for the Irish referendum on abortion to be re-run, no complaint from Ken Clarke about the ‘-tyranny of the majority’, no moaning that the campaign had been in any way unfair. Neither should there have been. The Irish people have made a fair and democratic choice
Home Arlene Foster, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, said that the referendum in Ireland on abortion had no impact on the law in the province, where it is a devolved matter. But the Northern Ireland Assembly has not sat since January 2017, when power-sharing arrangements broke down. The DUP currently
Unclued lights are anagrams of eight words which are of a kind. Across 1 Result of hooker’s foul work? (13, two words, one hyphened) 9 Flower from 19th State in yellow and light brown (except for edges) (7) 11 Penniless cleric one passes (7) 16 Lord, say, occupies lounge (5) 17 Poet’s pigsty fellow
By 74 it is easy to feel that you have seen it all, done it all, that nothing much surprises you any more. Striving gives way to coping. Drop a pencil and it rolls under the sofa. What you have to do is think about the best way to find it and pick it up.
Dear Mary: I have been invited to the wedding of a distant relative through marriage, to her long-term partner. I did not expect to be invited, therefore would like to show my gratitude. However, there is no wedding list and they have specified on the invitation that the only gift they wish to receive is
President Erdogan can raise a crowd. As he travels to every corner of his huge country in the month before elections that could return him to the palace for another five years, tens of thousands turn out in sports halls, city squares and purpose-built rally grounds. His acerbic, bombastic public appearances, stage-managed with rock-star entrances
