Life

High life

Make or break

I am heartbroken but for once it is not over a girl. I have to stay in the Bagel, hence missing The Spectator’s 180th anniversary party, Pug’s club’s first annual meeting in our new digs, Countess Bismarck’s dinner, Nick Scott’s shindig, and so on. Not having set foot in London in months, I was looking

Low life

Train strain

Bank holiday Saturday afternoon and I’m standing in a jam-packed railway carriage bound for Cardiff in Wales. If I lift my head, my face is in my nearest neighbour’s face, so I’m contemplating my feet. A Welsh woman somewhere is holding a long and intimate telephone conversation in a voice loud enough for all in

Real life

A snag or two

Once a year, usually at the beginning of summer, it suddenly occurs to me that the entire house is about to fall down. The realisation that every job I’ve allowed to accumulate is about to visit disaster on me — my DIY judgment day — usually occurs around the May bank holiday when the air

More from life

Status Anxiety | 10 May 2008

I managed to crash the Vanity Fair Oscars party – but not Boris’s victory do It was not until I saw Boris making his acceptance speech at City Hall just after midnight that I decided to gatecrash his victory party. I was quite drunk, having just hosted a dinner party, and my wife had long

Islands in the sun

Christa D’Souza plans a Caribbean summer Hate crowds? Haven’t booked your summer holidays yet? Want to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth just this once? If so, let me make a suggestion. Instead of going to the south of France or Puglia this summer, why not try the Caribbean? It may sound perverse, going

Spectator Sport

Spectator Sport | 10 May 2008

The infinite capacity of men to talk utter balls about football should never amaze, but the level of spiteful twaddle spouted about Chelsea’s Avram Grant, which started at volume 11, is laughable. This decent, courteous, humorous and intensely honourable man was put in charge of a team of highly gifted, absurdly paid, over-ego’d individuals who

Dear Mary

Dear Mary | 10 May 2008

Q. Please advise me. I have a friend whose mobile has no signal when she is at home. When I ring her landline her father always says he will pass the message on that I have rung but he often forgets. She does not call me back and I do not like to annoy her

Mind your language

Mind Your Language | 10 May 2008

The events of 1 May seem a long time ago, and so does their sequel, a so-called fightback by the Labour party. A press briefing last Sunday declared in a fine froth of mixed metaphors: ‘Gordon Brown will seek to kick-start Labour’s fightback today after its mauling at the polls.’ Fightback is a handy word