Life

High life

Taki: our leaders are weak and powerless in the face of religious fanatics

This Christmas our thoughts need to be with our fellow Christians who are being threatened in the Bible lands. No ifs or buts about it, they are being told either to join the Sunni-led opposition to Assad and renounce Christianity or die. After decades of protection by a secular-leaning dictatorship, Christians are being given ultimatums

Low life

Real life

Wild life

More from life

Why does Newbury alienate potential racegoers?

You don’t realise how much your pleasures mean until you are denied them. It was wonderful to get back on a racecourse for Hennessy Day at Newbury even if my two sticks proved an encouragement to every  acquaintance to engage at length about the hip replacements endured by their nearest and dearest. Even worse was

Spectator Sport

Roger Alton: 2013 was even better for sport than 2012

British sport used to be dead. You only have to look down the list of past winners of the Sports Personality of the Year award to see that. In 1994 Damon Hill won it for not quite winning the Formula 1 drivers’ champion-ship; three years later Greg Rusedski won it for not quite winning the

Dear Mary

Food

Drink

Mind your language

Why twerking sounds so stupid

The Widow Twankey first appeared on stage in 1861. At that time daily papers listed on Boxing Day dozens of novelty-stuffed pantomimes. But as far as I can make out, Aladdin, or, The Wonderful Scamp, in which the widow, played by James Rogers, made her entrance, was not a Christmas pantomime but a burlesque, for which the

Poems

Bleeding-under-Wychwood

Oh take a break at Bleeding-under-Wychwood Away from all the city noise and grime; Where the harvest moon shines bright and the knocking in the night Is the undertaker working overtime. You can dine quite cheaply at the Pig and Whistle On the roast beef of Olde England, rare and lean, But I don’t advise

Bar Mirror

He had not recognised me or I him. The place was crammed and rackety, and our eyes Took each other in, and we didn’t realise… We stared, and we ruled each other out until After several glassy seconds I found the will And the nerve to speak. Well — it must be! — He knows

The Wiki Man