New York Ain’t that a bitch! What else can one say? The way I figure it, it was 357 columns without a miss for the first seven years, then, after a Pentonville break, 1,275 straight until last week. The lawyers broke my streak, but then they would. And in my 30th year, too. Well, what
The Reverend Nicola Hunt of St Peter’s, Ugborough, welcomed us to the St Francis of Assisi Day animal service. Yes, she had seen the Vicar of Dibley episode in which there had been an amusing portrayal of an animal service. Looking around the congregation, we hadn’t brought quite the wide variety of animals that the
The invitation to the Frieze Art Fair was a bigger parcel than anything that arrived on my birthday. It looked like a kind of ambassadorial visa package to a higher realm, and spa. Art invitations now outweigh fashion invitations. I mean they weigh more. The events grow ever more lavish as the art bubble perpetuates
He may, unusually, have a Cambridge economics degree but nobody in racing looks the part better than John Gosden. The panama or brown trilby according to the weather. The upright physical presence of a man you could easily imagine as a battalion commander. The crinkle of experience about eyes which have studied the racing scene
Toby Young on the social pitfalls of your child’s birthday party I suppose it had to happen. There comes a time in every father’s life when his son’s social activity begins to eclipse his own. I used to find it amusing when Ludo received a stiffy in the morning post. ‘What is it now?’ I’d say,
Bella Pollen on Jaeger’s ‘new’ look: old-fashioned tailoring made sexy With so many things in the world designed to make you angry, it seems pointless to get worked up about a colour, but I can’t help it — I have a thing about beige. It conjures up support tights for Scottish pensioners, ankle bandages and
Mark Daniell previews the Rugby World Cup semi-finals. Mark Daniell Chaos theory states that because of its incomprehensibly complex structure, the universe and everything in it is unpredictable. Established in the twentieth century, the idea is accepted as ‘good enough for now’ by most budding astrophysicists, and lately it would seem by most rugby fans
Rugby’s World Cup has been surprisingly engaging — hooray for the gallant grandeur of England, France and the other small-fry nations! It has been salutary for the Celts, however, with Wales and Ireland given such a contemptuous bums’ rush that each had to watch last weekend’s quarter-finals on television back in their own homes and
Q. I have started to commute to London and although I do not travel in every day I find myself constantly wearing the wrong kit in the wrong place. A Barbour looks dreadful in London — equally a Crombie or a Chesterfield looks somehow provocative at Westbury station. I can’t be expected to carry two
Now, let me see if I can get this right. My sister’s husband has a brother who has a friend who is friends with a couple in Zimbabwe who read The Spectator and are ‘very big fans’ of mine. I think that’s it. Anyway, might I email them, just to say ‘hello’? They’d be really
A mondegreen is a term for a misheard word or phrase from a poem, song or piece of prose. It derives from a couplet in an old ballad, ‘They hae slain the Earl Murray/ And laid him on the green’, with the last line misheard as ‘And Lady Mondegreen’. Mondegreen was coined in Harper’s Magazine
