‘How are you going to pay me back?’ This is the eternal question of the hard-pressed dad as he hands £10 to a teenage son with an urgent appointment at the snooker club. ‘My Saturday job,’ says Isaac satirically. He hasn’t got a Saturday job and that’s my fault, apparently. His friends all have immensely
The priest said it would be a short service because he wanted to make an important announcement. After rushing through the Mass so quickly he missed out most of the good bits, he solemnly declared the following: he urgently needed volunteers to say prayers over the bodies. The builder boyfriend agrees with me, but it
Italy’s victory over Scotland in last week’s Six Nations Rugby provoked much merriment in our house. Our Scottish chums watching with us were stunned into grumpy silence, and the grumpier they got, the funnier this seemed. It took many bottles to restore their good humour. Said bottles were all Italian, of course, courtesy of Honest
Michael Gove is back in the news, having come up with a new definition of extremism that he wants to roll out across Whitehall and beyond. Those captured by this definition, whether persons or groups, won’t be able to take up official roles or receive taxpayers’ money, with the primary purpose being to stop Islamic
After the failure of Bazball – ending in England’s dismal capitulation on the cricket fields of India – let us give thanks for the emergence of Borthball in front of the Twickenham faithful. And it certainly was much needed: Steve Borthwick’s England rugby team had apparently been trying to convince us that they really weren’t
Q. Do you agree with me that it is very bad manners to ask for a wifi code as soon as you walk into a lunch in someone else’s house? I have a centrally located, although cramped, flat in Soho and am very happy to cook for friends and friends of friends, but it is
My last piece began with a one-word sentence: ‘Gloom.’ A dear friend reproached me. ‘In a world already abundant with gloom, surely you can find a way of cheering us up. After all, you’re not writing about politics – or at least you’re not supposed to be.’ I promised to try harder to propagate good
A new television wildlife series called Queens (the ruling kind, not the screaming kind) shows competition among hyenas that involves infanticide. ‘I want it to feel that you see yourself, your family and your friends in these stories, that they’re relatable,’ the writer of the series told the Daily Mail. Well, Veronica has reached adulthood
The squirty old style fuel pumps lie dead as I hook the car up to the charging point and brace in case the plug recoils. I’m pleased we’re powered by wind and solar now shale gas lies untouched and coal’s defunct. A half-hour charge beside the jet-wash gun with pushy forecourt ads, someone changing oil,
Writing a fortnightly column about a sport happening daily can be cruel. These words had to be delivered before the Cheltenham Festival’s Tuesday opening so I can only declare what I hope might have happened: that England’s trainers have responded as effectively to the advance taunts that they would fold in the face of Irish
