Athens I am struggling up the slippery marble steps of the Acropolis with the Geldofs and the Bismarcks. We gaze upwards towards the façade of the Parthenon, whose simplicity has excited architects and conquerors for 2,000 years. There are no straight lines, everything curving upwards towards the centre. The whole structure tilts slightly towards the
My luck had to run out one of these fine days. Everybody’s does sooner or later. I’ve had a fantastic run — I’ve been lucky all of my life — and shall continue to count myself fortunate. But being suddenly out of luck makes one feel unmasked, which does take a bit of getting used
The travellers were blamed for fly-tipping when all that was left on the common after they went back up north were some neat piles of mulched bark and branches. Of course, they should not have left anything, ideally. But I’m not convinced they didn’t cut back the overgrowth to get their caravans parked, improving a
The BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme wasn’t in any doubt about who to blame for America’s latest bout of mass shootings. Newsnight’s report began with footage of Donald Trump addressing the faithful at a rally. ‘This is an invasion,’ he warned, referring to the refugees massing on the Mexican border. ‘When you see
During the World Cup (remember that?), Virat Kohli, the very model of a modern major cricketer, appealed to Indian fans not to boo the returned Australian players. It would be nice to think that Joe Root might call for something similar over the next few days from the increasingly egregious English supporters. Current boo-boy tactics
Q. A friend constantly walks around with his bootlaces undone. His wife declines to nag him on the grounds she doesn’t want to be in a ‘co-dependent relationship’. We all enjoy this man’s company but we cannot work out whether his habit is attention-seeking (for example he often has to kick his legs out at
The Pirate Bar is an oddity, even for this column: a bar and restaurant themed in homage to a pirate, whom I consider to be generic, and Leonard Cohen. It is in Hydra, a three-hour boat ride from Piraeus, and Cohen’s home in the 1960s with his muse — this means unpaid female servant who
When Boris Johnson hit out at ‘the doomsters and the gloomsters’, I was willing to believe that the word gloomster existed. Well, it does now. English abounds in elements like the suffix ster by which new words may be generated. We know without thinking about it that words ending in ster are slightly derogatory. A
