Gstaad Here in Gstaad there is no worker alienation. Nor are the rich especially worried. The talk is about snow conditions, upcoming parties, the price of real estate, Brexit and, of course, socialism, a disease that strikes those far away from this Alpine resort, but has yet to infect any of the locals. I
Just before I left France, Oscar’s mum sent over a photo of Oscar in his classroom at school showing the camera two school awards. One was for ‘pupil of the week’, the other for general sporting excellence. His expression was a comic parody of being proud rather than pride itself. I’d seen him hardly at
‘I see you’ve got the posters up then?’ said the little lodger as she came home from work. She’s got the idea now that she is living with a person who could best be described as eccentric. But she seems to really like it. She seems to find all aspects of living with me thoroughly
Kenya As the Union Flag was lowered during Kenya’s Uhuru ceremony in 1963, the Duke of Edinburgh turned to the country’s new leader, Jomo Kenyatta. ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this, old chap?’ History fails to record Jomo’s reply, but last week I asked my Nairobi lawyer, Mary, to look
Patrick Jardin lost his daughter when Islamist terrorists attacked the Bataclan in November 2015. Nathalie was one of 130 people killed that evening in Paris and her father still pays her mobile phone charges so that he can hear her voice on her answer message. For Jardin, time has healed nothing. He spearheaded a successful
Margaret Nelson is a 74-year-old woman who lives in a village in Suffolk. On Monday morning she was woken by a telephone call. It was an officer from Suffolk police. The officer wanted to speak to Mrs Nelson about her Twitter account and her blog. Mrs Nelson, a former humanist celebrant and one-time local newspaper
Liam Neeson has been ‘cancelled’, which is internet-speak for ‘cast out’. Overnight he has gone from being the avuncular star of ropey American thrillers to being ‘trash’, persona non grata, a foul, nasty man Hollywood should no longer indulge. His crime? He confessed, during an interview, to having once had a terrible thought, a thought
The Guardian last week published a ‘we, the undersigned’ letter from 50 ‘artists of conscience’ urging the BBC to boycott this year’s Eurovision Song Contest because it’s taking place in Israel. ‘Eurovision may be light entertainment,’ they wrote, ‘but it is not exempt from human rights considerations — and we cannot ignore Israel’s systematic violations
At the same time as England’s rugby union players delivered a magnificent hearts-of-oak performance to humble a very good Irish side in Dublin, England’s cricketers were giving a very passable impression of what happens to a pile of balsa wood when stamped on by an elephant. What happens next — especially looking ahead to the
Q. I wondered if you could advise me on a rather embarrassing situation please. I sing in my local Church of England choir and am a lay worship assistant (taking services on the fourth Sunday of the month). My problem is during the ‘sharing the peace’. The majority of the congregation shake hands, but there
Cakes & Bubbles is an unhappy woman’s restaurant. I thought it was a child’s restaurant, but I took a child there and he hated it and begged for a Double Decker. It is a patisserie and champagne bar inside the Hotel Café Royal on Regent Street. It sells sugar wound and smashed and spun —
Jan Morris in her book Oxford enjoyed the Greek lettering on the floor of the rotunda entrance to Rhodes House, Oxford. It seems to complement the Greek inscription on the roof and pious memorials on the walls. But literally translated, it means: ‘Let no smoke-bearing person enter.’ In other words: ‘No smoking.’ Could it have
