I’ve got my ticket. I can’t quite believe how I managed it — I keep studying it under a magnifying glass and holding it up to the light to make sure it’s real — but I’ve got one. And like a lover who has to introduce the subject of the loved one into every conversation,
Q. At a sumptuously catered private view, a well-known London art gallery director bounced up with very expressive congratulations about my latest book. My initial delight soon turned to numb shock when I realised she had confused me with Peter York, an older man. Of course I said nothing, but took the earliest opportunity to
Romantics as well as purists will be lucky if today’s FA Cup final in Cardiff riddles the cockles and stirs the spirits. Romantics as well as purists will be lucky if today’s FA Cup final in Cardiff riddles the cockles and stirs the spirits. The knockout rounds might have been compelling enough, but for some
We don’t often get second chances. Education, the direction of your career, first love, life itself — they’re none of them dress rehearsals, unless you’re lucky with the first two. And if they were, would we do any better? Best not ask. That’s one reason why it’s always so much more cheering to think about
Australian wines now firmly lead French in British off-sales; but apparently we still prefer French wines in restaurants. My guess is that there is a race on, as some superlative wines made in the more obscure French regions compete with the best from the New World. Sommeliers, or whoever they have in the kind of
This year we celebrate the centenary of the coining of the word aeroplanist. It meant the driver of a flying-machine, a device that had been invented three years earlier. After two decades of struggle, aeroplanist gave way to pilot, which in this sense arrived in 1907. Interestingly enough, sky-pilot, meaning a clergyman, predates the invention
