Life

High life

Scrooge got it right

New York Boy, oh boy! The Christmas double-issues come quickly now. Once upon a time the run-up to the holidays was unending, with non-stop parties up to the final explosion on New Year’s Eve. No longer. Now Christmases come and go quicker than you can say tempus fugit, which in a way is better for

Low life

Tea and telly

I don’t watch a lot of telly these days because I’d rather read. But when I was going out with my boy’s mother, she and I watched it all the time. It was all we ever did. I’d come home from work and we’d sit on the sofa and watch the telly until it was

Wild life

Plum pudding on the beach

Laikipia My favourite Christmases are in Nairobi. This is how it goes. We gather in the suburbs, at my sister and brother-in-law’s hotel, which they close for the holiday. It has giraffe and warthog on rolling lawns under the shadow of the Ngong Hills. There are butlers, a genius chef, and it’s the only place

More from life

An enduring love affair

Virginia I have had for a long time a certain obsession. It began in France when I was about 14 or 15. To be exact, it began in Paris, in the restaurant of the George V hotel. It happened when I first saw the brown topping oscillating towards me, giving off the warm scent of

Your Problems Solved | 13 December 2003

Dear Mary… From the Rt Hon. Michael Howard, QC, MPQ. A friend of mine was walking up St James’s recently behind a girl with a stunning figure. Admiring her form, he happened to notice, somewhat to his alarm, that her tightly fitting trousers were slowly beginning to split. If he speeded up his steps and

Mind your language

Mind Your Language | 13 December 2003

This year we have seen a word born like one of those volcanoes off the coast of Iceland. The word is issue, in a new and puzzling meaning. It had been looming through the seawater for many months before, but now it has come hissing and steaming above the surface. I had become used to