Do any of you still like the dread word diversity, one that’s proudly flung around by those who squirm when the name of the great Enoch Powell comes up? If anything, Powell was a prophet, and after the latest London outrage, his so-called Rivers of Blood speech sure comes to mind. He got it right
On bank holiday Monday my brother and I, and my brother’s three Border terriers, went for a day-long walk on Dartmoor. We weren’t the only ones up there. And I often wonder whether the hardy, reclusive souls who live up there, having endured another long winter, aren’t a little peeved to find their peace shattered
As well as buying vinyl records, I have begun collecting three-dimensional books constructed of paper that you hold in your hands and operate manually by turning their pages over. I buy them from bookshops. There are a few of these emporiums scattered across the country. My favourite one is called My Back Pages in Balham,
I’m writing this from New York where I’m spending a few days visiting elementary schools. It feels odd to be back, particularly in my new role as an ‘educationalist’. The last time I was here I was enjoying 15 minutes of fame as a judge in an American food reality show called Top Chef. I
When I was a child there was never any doubt that I would go to a boarding school. My father, my uncle and my elder brother had all gone to Eton, and it was assumed that I would eventually go there, too; but I would first be expected to board at a preparatory school with
Lords laid on a nifty do the other day for the British Sports Book Awards, which was a great reminder of the quality of so much sports writing here. The best books duly won — Gideon Haigh’s perfectly pitched On Warne (Simon and Schuster), and the Sunday Times journalist David Walsh’s biblical Seven Deadly Sins:
Q. On two recent occasions I have noted that women I know professionally are pregnant, although neither referred to it. Should one offer congratulations or wait until the pregnancy is mentioned? I have taken two approaches, congratulating the one I know reasonably well, and saying nothing to the one I know less well. Your advice please,
The Antica Roma is an ice-cream shop near the Spanish Steps in Rome; recently, it served four English tourists called the Bannisters and Their Wives. Mr Bannister was so surprised to receive a bill for €64 for four ice creams that he, or possibly someone representing him, contacted the Daily Mail, as certain tourists do
‘One good term deserves another,’ said my husband in his infuriating way of almost making a joke. As he was talking to the wireless, it hardly mattered. His provocation, a serious one, I admit, was someone saying ‘in terms of’ when she meant no such thing. It is happening more and more, and my husband’s
