Life

High life

High life | 31 January 2019

‘The British political class has offered to the world an astounding spectacle of mendacious, intellectually limited hustlers.’ This is a direct quote from a recent New York Times, a newspaper that is known for being anti-heterosexual white male, anti-Christian, and now anti-British ruling class. Mind you, normally when someone attacks the British I smile. And

Low life

Low life | 31 January 2019

‘The whole of my life I’ve had difficulty.’ I heard Sylvia say this through the door, which was slightly ajar. ‘Sometimes it’s absolute torture.’ I knocked and entered my mother’s small sitting room unctuously, bearing a tray on which were two gold-rimmed Royal Worcester cups and saucers, the cups filled with steaming, freshly poured Yorkshire

Real life

Real life | 31 January 2019

Under a blood moon, that was how Tara went down in the end. The old chestnut mare sure knew how to make an exit. She knew how to do most things, having lived 35 years entirely on her own terms. The builder boyfriend and I stood speechless in the field afterwards, marooned in that strange

More from life

The turf | 31 January 2019

Last Saturday morning, Mo Gawdat, former chief business officer at Google, was on the radio explaining his algorithm for happiness, apparently a publishing sensation. Happiness, it seems, is equal to or greater than the events of your life minus your expectations of how life should be. That was a tricky proposition for the 20,000 of

Wine Club

Does the Left want us to return to the pre-industrial age?

However misguided their ideas, until recently it was safe to assume that those on the Left did at least want to improve the lot of humanity – they wanted the global population to enjoy better health, a better diet and longer lives. They just disagreed with capitalists and free marketeers over how best to achieve

Wine Club 2 February

He will hate me saying this, but Anthony Barton — now in his late eighties — is the grand old man of Bordeaux. Co-owner with his daughter, Lilian Barton-Sartorius, of the fabled Châteaux Léoville & Langoa Barton, Anthony represents the eighth generation of his family in Bordeaux, the links having first been forged in the

No sacred cows

The problem with measuring progress

The Department for Education (DfE) published its finalised data on the 2018 GCSE results last week, revealing that, for the second year running, white pupils are doing worse in English secondary schools than any other ethnic group. According to the new Progress 8 measure, which assigns a score to GCSE entrants based on how much

Dear Mary

Your problems solved | 31 January 2019

 Q. I am an artist living in the UK and was charmed to be invited by a fellow artist, a member of the Chelsea Arts Club, to join her and her uncle for lunch there. After paying by card, my hostess went to leave some bank notes on the table and I was surprised when

Drink

Brexit and cru bourgeois

Acouple of lawyers were disagreeing about a matter which could become increasingly relevant. Could a sitting president pardon himself? But there was a further aspect to this question. A friend of mine who has known Mr Trump for 20 years and who likes him detects a weakening in his mental powers. One of our number

Mind your language

Jack

‘Sounds like fun,’ said my husband, wearing a hat with the sign ‘Irony’ in its band. He had read a review of ‘a gritty reworking of Shakespeare’s King Lear, set on the River Humber’. The name of the drama was Jack Lear. A true drama that gripped the popular tabloids is that of Jack Shepherd, convicted

The Wiki Man

The test of time

In past years, I have been a critic of HS2. I might now change my mind. One simple tweak might make HS2 worthwhile — while saving the taxpayer most of its £60 billion cost. For this to work, all you need to understand is that 1 x 200 is not the same as 200 x