Life

Dolce vita

Real life

Are conspiracy theories just conspiracy therapy?

At the Centre for Rare Diseases, the car park was full and lots of people were milling about. I pulled into a private space I wasn’t meant to be in so that I could let my mother out of the car by the front door. I then sat in the car waiting, watching the rare

Wild life

Am I having a heart attack? 

Nairobi Some of our medical practitioners in Kenya advertise their services on street corners. ‘Bad omens, lost lovers, broken marriage, BIG PENIS,’ say hand-painted notices nailed to telegraph poles. ‘Love potions, LUCKY RING, Do-As-I-Say Spells, business boosting magic, land issues, lost items, herbs from the underseas.’ I admit to needing help on many of these

More from life

Tricky but delicious: how to make the perfect pretzels

My husband is obsessed with pretzels. The joy that a slightly warm, soft baked pretzel brings him is disproportionate. And, unlike in Germany and the States, where soft pretzels are ubiquitous, they are hard to come by here. So, for a while I have been trying to perfect the pretzel. It has not been smooth

No sacred cows

Could J.K. Rowling be Oxford’s next chancellor?

Among my generation of Oxford graduates – late fifties, early sixties – there is currently a great deal of talk about who the next chancellor should be. In February, the present incumbent, Chris Patten, announced he was stepping down at the end of this academic year, thereby triggering an election to find his successor. The

Spectator Sport

County cricket needs Bazball

It’s freezing cold and everywhere is flooded, so it must be the start of the county cricket season. Surrey, last year’s champions, head for Old Trafford on Friday, in what should be a three-sweater day, aiming to make it three titles in a row. And who would bet against them? It’s a superb tournament, the

Dear Mary

Dear Mary: how can I unmask anonymous marathon sponsors?

Q. My son-in-law is running the Paris marathon to raise money for cystic fibrosis research and has sent out a mail shot to friends and family asking to be sponsored via justgiving.com. He has had a fabulous response. Some people have posted supportive messages alongside their names but have chosen to conceal the amount of

Food

Mind your language

When is a Lord not a Lord? 

The Financial Times seeks applicants for the Sir Samuel Brittan fellowship. Announcing this, the paper refers to him as Sir Samuel, which is correct. It also quotes its obituary of him where he is called simply Brittan. That is also correct for a dead man, as we might say Churchill, not Sir Winston. It would

Poems

The Bronze Head of Virginia Woolf Seen Through the Railings of Tavistock Square on a Bright Spring Morning in 2020

Her tiny headpeers above three jarscrammed with votive jonquils – her face among the crows, the marching limes, the warty humps and bubblesof the London planes. Bronze and bluebell. Bronze on high Portland stone. Her beauty wrenched from clay, whose sculptor stabbed unfinished voidsto stare directly at the surging wave,  eyes that studied fin and rainbowforced, like millions