Things that I once loved — Fifth Avenue & 57th Street, brownstone terraces on hot summer afternoons, cold beer and fried eggs at 5 a.m. after a night of carousing, the Sherry-Netherland — and now miss have grown ever more monumental upon reflection. I suppose that it’s normal to miss things you loved when young,
I ran for the airport terminal shuttle bus; the doors shut behind me as I skipped on. I sank into a seat beside a young chap who was turned sideways and chatting with the fellow behind him, who was leaning forward. They were speaking in English, quietly, about Melania Trump. The chap beside me was
Some people get into the choosing of tap fittings. I am not a person who gets into the choosing of tap fittings. After a day looking at tap fittings, I don’t so much feel like I’m choosing tap fittings as the tap fittings are choosing me. It is imperative I do this quickly. A short
Against my better judgment, I agreed to go to Center Parcs for an Easter weekend break. We chose the one in Sherwood Forest, not because of any sentimental attachment to Robin Hood, but because it was the most inexpensive. Even then, it was hardly cheap: £804 for three nights and that didn’t include breakfast. First,
Every Grand National reminds me of a hero of my youth: Beltrán Alfonso Osorio y Díez de Rivera, the 18th Duke of Alburquerque, a Spanish amateur rider who became obsessed with the race but whose only entry in the record books is for breaking more bones in competing in the National than anybody else. I
A wonderful offer from Berry Bros & Rudd, this. Wine-loving readers will know that once or twice a month we hold Spectator winemakers’ lunches at 22 Old Queen Street. A well-known winemaker will bring some wines and chat about them to a maximum of 14 readers over lunch in the boardroom. These entertaining affairs must surely
What a treat to be Sergio Garcia. Not only have you just won your first major and trousered a small fortune, you are also loved by all and sundry without exception; not least by your absolute corker of a fiancée, the sensational Angela Akins, who looks like she should be from Malaga, but is actually
Q. My aunt lives in a small market town with narrow roads and limited parking. A neighbour opposite acquired a large and gruesome camper van and parked it right outside her front door. The neighbour was polite enough to ask, and my aunt was polite enough to say that, of course, it was no problem.
Barbecoa is Jamie Oliver’s new restaurant on Piccadilly, and no matter how many times I mutter the name, I do not know what it means, if it means anything; it may be a posh riff on barbecue, which does not need gentrifying, because barbecue is cuisine’s mass murder. The only other mention I can find
‘It has become something of a King Charles’ head, or should that be a King Charles’s head?’ said my husband, laughing, as though he had made a joke. By ‘it’ he meant the apostrophe, which forces its way into any discussion of grammar, just as the head of the King and Martyr forced itself into
