I’ve stayed far away from the new barbarians with their choppers, tank-like cars, home theatres on board, and fridge-shaped super yachts that terrorise sea life. In fact, dolphins escorted us in to Kyparissi, a tiny village on the eastern Peloponnese 60 kms from Sparta, my grandmother’s birthplace. German and Spartan; not a bad combination, especially
Five and the Red One are a German covers band. It’s probably the most uninspiring name for a rock band I’ve ever heard. Every July they come to the same French village for a one-off appearance and every year they play exactly the same set of rock classics. Young and old turn out to sing
‘This situation is Rorke’s Drift,’ said the builder boyfriend, after our proposed renovations were objected to at the parish council’s notorious planning meeting. ‘When you’re faced with 4,000 warriors armed with spears you may as well go down fighting,’ he declared, as we sat in the cottage ruminating on the news from our architect, who
Khalid Abdullah, John Gosden and Frankie Dettori — owner, trainer and jockey — already figured among the great names of racing. After this year’s Qipco-sponsored King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes they were joined in the pantheon by Enable, the astonishing filly who has been the prime focus of their attentions this year. As
The Education Policy Institute (EPI) has just published a report looking at the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged 16-year-olds in England — and the news is not good. While the gap has narrowed by three months since 2007, it is still 19.3 months. That is to say, it is as if disadvantaged pupils have
Having just finished researching a book on champagne and sparkling wine (out in October since you ask), I’ve been awash with fizz. There must have been 150 bottles cluttering my office at one point — I couldn’t even reach the telly to watch the cricket. I began to get the sweats whenever I heard a
The weather forecast last Saturday promised 100 per cent likelihood of rain. I like that formulation: it doesn’t leave much wiggle room. And so it turned out as I pitched up at the Oval just as the players trooped off in the wet. Even so, at the halfway stage, there was still a 100 per
Q. I’m shortly to host a very large family gathering. Everyone will be related to the same ancestor, so we will have at least one subject to talk about — but then what? We will be a disparate group, hailing from different places, professions, generations and walks of life, and with nothing much in common
Tate St Ives is a pale 1980s block, with a fat rounded porte cochère and sea-stained walls. It is the kind of house Iron Man would build if he lived in New Malden, but St Ives has always welcomed money. It is an oddity in the land of cows, pilchards and tin, beloved of retirees,
‘Remember what the fellow said — it’s not a bally bit of use every prospect pleasing if man is vile,’ Bertie Wooster remarked. (In this case, the man was Aunt Agatha’s second husband.) Now Bertram was quite widely, if not exactly, versed in the gems of English literature, and older readers will, like Wodehouse’s, recognise
