Gstaad Good old Helvetia. I’m quitting her for the rainy but pleasant land of England. The cows are beginning to resemble chorus girls and the village an Alpine Colditz. Too much of a good thing said a wise man to a friend of mine who wanted to live on the French Riviera all year round.
Every Friday afternoon the foreign correspondent and I attend a French lady’s home for our one-hour French lesson. The foreign correspondent has lived happily in France for about 20 years with only ‘hallo’, ‘yes’, ‘red wine, please’, ‘same again, chief’, ‘keep it coming’ and ‘cheerio’. His wife is smoothly fluent and has been urging him
The street light as bright as the Dog Star was fitted with a shield, and I was assigned my own personal engineer who rang and texted me. Whether or not this was because I had threatened to throw myself out of the window, I can’t be sure. But it is certainly true that I got
I was delighted to hear the government plans to appoint a ‘free speech champion’ to the board of the Office for Students. His or her responsibility will be to make sure universities in England do everything that is reasonably practicable to uphold freedom of speech within the law, including preventing external speakers from being no-platformed
French rugby has always been well stocked with boeuf but now it has added lashings of exceptionally tangy moutarde and the whole dish is mighty tasty — as evidenced by their brilliant first try against Ireland at the weekend. Covid scares permitting, the team are the stars of this Six Nations — and annoyingly good-looking
Q. My mother, aged 87, has taken to forwarding me by email slightly risqué jokes. Her carer is the recipient of the jokes and reads them aloud to my mother, who then suggests she forwards them to me. I think this is an exercise in connecting but it has had the reverse effect as, due
Dining in catastrophe used to be more interesting: but we must be fair. It was a smaller (and wetter) catastrophe: the Acqua Alta in Venice. That is when the sea rises and you put bin bags on your legs; and people push you off the duckboards while other people waltz in the water, sweetly and
‘I’ll stick to being Brazilian,’ said my husband. It was a family joke. Every time a politician on the radio says resilient, the first to shout out Brazilian wins. I haven’t yet discovered what the prize is, though we have been playing the game since 2014, when I wrote about resilience here. My husband may
They sense the clocks have changed but can’t tell if an hour’s been lost or gained. It’s a struggle to name the day of the week Monday or Friday it’s all the same. There isn’t a deadline they have to meet no future appointments they need to keep. Like insects trapped between panes of glass
The hitch down Spring Bank Holiday was back to this, Stumbling through high-rise canyons blocking views Of dandelions and desolation, lying thumb Raised up in hope and forced to thinkOf two nights earlier, when kiss on fumbling kiss Had come to nothing much,minds left to muse On after smoke and talk and all the drink,Tongues
Mum said he only used it once,the year I was born,fighting the tag An Older Dad,sporting trumped-up auburnin all of my baby photos. So what if he kayaked with me,dug an allotment,laid a lawn and its paving stones,swam and roller-skated,taught me a two-handed backhand? I learned to mention his white hairevery chance I got,feeling a
Since coup conspirators nearly won £10 million from the bookies, the sport has divided into two camps. Some grinned and wished good luck to the schemers in their efforts to worst the Old Enemy; others insisted with sober faces that it was a scandal which besmirched racing and diddled honest punters who weren’t in the
