Gstaad OK, sports fans, it’s time to spill the beans. Some time last year, I wrote about rich man’s kick-boxing, the art of punching and kicking at someone holding up pads. It’s the best conditioner I know if done correctly and non-stop. I also call it the most Christian of sports because there’s a lot
Since Christmas I’ve been sending off these columns with the anxious thought that perhaps I’m overdoing the dying bit and the truth is that I have a long way to go. Suppose I’m still here on Lammas Day, for example? I worry that some people might feel short changed. Moreover I worry that some might
‘Next!’ shouted the bouffant-haired lady dressed in a terrifyingly crisp green and white skirt suit. She was sitting behind the glass-screened reception desk of the private hospital where my mother had just had her knee replaced. This formidable dame I took to be a positive sign of the excellence of a healthcare establishment where one
Chicken tikka masala has become something of a joke. When, in the late 2000s, it was topping lists of the nation’s favourite dishes, its popularity was seen as an indictment of British cuisine: we nick stuff from other cultures, strip out its character and call it our own. This is all deeply unfair: chicken tikka
I don’t know how Laura Taylor does it. Private Cellar’s marketing director has managed – after a similar coup with the previous vintage – to snare an elusive and handsome parcel of 2022 Hamilton Russell Vineyards Chardonnay and Pinot Noir especially for readers of The Spectator. You cannot buy these anywhere else yet. These are
I was disappointed to learn that the authorities are planning to crack down on dockless bikes and electric scooters. Westminster City Council says it intends to fine the rental firms if vehicles are ‘abandoned’ on pavements, while the Department for Transport is planning to introduce a licensing scheme. This is partly in response to lobbying
Readers of a certain vintage might be familiar with the work of J.A. (Charles) Cuddon, a teacher at Emanuel School in London and author of the Macmillan Dictionary of Sport and Games, which ran to some two million words of mostly exquisite prose. This is how he started his entry on cricket: ‘Cricket is a
Q. I work part-time with a lovely girl (aged 27) in a tiny office. She is very nice and not too woke. But she wears cheap scent that has a ghastly, acrid smell and I feel like I’m ingesting poison. Mary, what do I do? – Name and address withheld A. Why not borrow a
The Cédric Grolet at the Berkeley lives in the shiniest hotel in Knightsbridge, though I prefer the Mandarin Oriental, because it looks like the crown of a toppling king: no matter what they spend on it, it seems in danger of falling into Hyde Park. The Berkeley operates a pass the parcel for restaurants and,
‘Only one biscotto!’ exclaimed my husband, grabbing a little packet labelled ‘Biscotti’ at the station coffee stall. It fell from his agitated fingers and broke into two. ‘There you are, darling, two biscotti,’ I said cheerfully, to his annoyance. But singulars and plurals for foodstuffs are seldom simple. Take macaroni. It is an obsolete form
I paid the fisherman as he passed by, took in my hand this vile monstrosity, a creature murky as its watery haunt, an outsize weevil, or a hydra’s runt; shapeless as shade, and nameless as the Lord. A maw that gaped, and a black stump that bored out through the scales… It snapped at me.
The point of the hike was to forget the waveof restructures. Cuts were in favour all season,each team member prepared for transformationagainst a profile, a personal specification. Beyond the M40 underpass, we trod the gaps,those places the towns had not made their own,so we could talk through what matterslike wanting to be outside of ourselves
When he was a young reporter, writing for the Straits Times on the Korean War, my brother-in-law was based in Japan. His girlfriend, Itsuko by name, taught him certain refinements concerning hygiene that had not been part of his upbringing: for example, to dry between his toes. Sometimes I embarrass friends by asking if they
