New York At times I used to think the place was real. The New York of films, that is. The reality is an urban agglomeration of millions, most of whom have a disinclination to speak English. Then there’s the celluloid city of 42nd Street, Annie Hall, Dead End, Rear Window and King Kong. This is
I entered the cave house carrying groceries and panting from the climb to find an old hippie woman displaying rugs to Catriona. Evidently Catriona had narrowed her final choice down to the two spread out on the red floor tiles. She and the hippie were silently contemplating them. One was about six feet by four,
Decorating a tree on the unfinished minstrels’ gallery was an appealing idea if only for the health and safety violations. The little lodger was up for it and between the two of us we heaved the six-foot tree to the kitchen, preparing to hoist it aloft. As things stand, the gallery above the kitchen doesn’t
It may yet turn out that the most significant development in racing this year was the sale of some 250 dairy cows. Back in 1995 Colin Tizzard, a dairy farmer on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, started training point-to-pointers for his son Joe to ride. Joe Tizzard, one-time stable jockey to Paul Nicholls, went
Brexit is an accident born of misunderstanding. One of the biggest miscalculations is about the EU and how it works. Troublingly, that misjudgement, embraced by both unwise Leavers and imprudent Remainers, could just lead Britain off a cliff, for the second time in three years. I attended my first EU summit in 2001 and stopped
I would say we’ll always have Paris. But maybe not. It was only a few weeks ago that French president Emmanuel Macron promised a red carpet for bankers fleeing Brexit Britain. As matters have unfolded, the carpet has become one of broken glass. On the Avenue Kléber, one of the toniest streets in Paris and
One of the promises of Brexit campaigners, famously, was that parliament will ‘take back control’ of laws that affect Britain. Since the referendum result, it has seemed rather more that the government is taking back control, rather than MPs, with the executive (quite naturally) resisting any opportunity for Parliament to have a say in, well,
Being a veritable martyr to Christmas Affected Doom, Depression and Despondency, I admit to feeling far from chipper. My wife says I should grow up and stop being so bloody grumpy and my boys bait me constantly by whistling ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’ and wishing me a cool Yule. Sigh. I’ve since locked
For months I’ve been looking forward to the Guardian’s much-heralded report on racism in Britain, which was unveiled this week. As a nation, we suffer from our fair share of divisions, with new fault lines opening up all the time, but our record when it comes to race relations is pretty good. Surely, a newspaper
Q. A friend and I are giving a combined Christmas drinks party for 120 people. It’s being held at her house so I don’t feel I have the same leverage as if we were hiring somewhere. Unfortunately she has a very glamorous son and insists that he and some fellow students will make fantastic waiters
One of the pleasures of journalism is the opportunity to meet eminent persons: bankers, businessmen, civil servants, diplomats, politicians, vignerons. Although there are occasional exceptions, such as Theresa May and around one-third of the current cabinet, it is usually easy to see why these characters attained their eminence. That is especially true when it comes
Martin Allen has written with a very interesting question. It follows on from his initial query, which is why people use text as the form of the verb in the past tense: ‘I text him yesterday.’ He adds: ‘It sound moronic to me, but is this how irregular verbs originate?’ The funny thing is that
I have just spent a weekend planning a family trip to Chennai and Hyderabad. Since some of the flights are booked with reward points and some are not, our flights are under three separate booking numbers, each of which requires a separate login. I also had to print out booking confirmations from three different hotels,
