Shot in the once upon a time city of dreams, now one of nightmares, the sweeping solipsism expressed made paranoia a kind of totalising faith. Behind the nauseating self-promotion, a so-called prince and his Hollywood diva hogged the headlines. Far, far east lay a dead man, one who had absolutely nothing in common with the
Standing at the door was a hospital porter. He was resting an elbow on the back of a heavily padded wheelchair. A strapping lad, wholly masculine, a credit to us all. He regarded me levelly with a sort of Byronic boredom. I was fetching in a paper shower cap, paper gown, knee-length stockingettes and paper
The nurse fixed me with a disapproving stare: ‘Why is there such a gap between these prescriptions?’ I had gone for a blood pressure check so I could get my HRT, but when she looked at my notes she could see that they last prescribed it years ago. In return for countless thousands of pounds
Kenya My father-in-law Gerry Taylor is 91 and walks daily on our Kenya ranch among herds of buffalo, giraffe and zebras. A few days ago he inadvertently came within 20 feet of an elephant and the both of them pretended not to see each other. He says he enjoys highland Kenya for its open spaces
I always feel pulled toward citrus at the start of the year. Initially it was subconscious: I’d just find myself in the kitchen making a lemon drizzle cake. But now I actively plan my citrusy January. As Christmas recedes, I make notes of recipes that I’m craving, and almost all of them call for a
Mrs Ray can be so sneaky. I thought that Dry January was all about spousal solidarity and mutual encouragement; she thought it was all about catching me out. It kicked off when she busted me sucking dry the liqueur chocolates I’d squirrelled away at Christmas and had come to rely upon. I said they didn’t
About ten years ago I thought seriously about becoming a Conservative MP. I jumped through a series of hoops and managed to get myself on the candidates’ list. Had I taken the next step, I might have been selected to fight a marginal seat and, given the party’s success in 2019, could have been elected.
Something is happening here, and you do know what it is, don’t you Mr Jones? Stargazers – and even some more grounded folk – reckon it’s written in the heavens: that the team Eddie Jones was supposed to have been coaching will meet the team he will be coaching in the rugby world cup final
Q. A very good friend, who has been incredibly generous in the past, is feeling the financial squeeze, particularly with the inflation we are all suffering. I would like somehow to contribute regularly to his monthly expenses but can’t think of a way to do this without offending him or getting a refusal from him.
Scott’s, Richmond, is a fish, champagne and oyster bar, and a new branch of Scott’s, Mayfair. The original Scott’s was part of what became the Trocadero Centre. (Ian Fleming was a regular. He would take captured U-boat officers there to get them drunk and chatty. James Bond visited too.) It moved to Mount Street and
In 1625 John Donne said: ‘As Manna tasted to every man like that he liked best, so doe the Psalmes administer instruction, and satisfaction, to every man, in every emergency and occasion.’ I’m not sure where Donne got this idea about manna, but I wonder whether C.S. Lewis had it in mind when he wrote
For three days now it has been possiblereading the letters and looking at photographs,to tell myself there is no differencebetween this and your just being somewhere else. I’ve been philosophising like a foolsupposed resemblances, absence apart:memory, other minds and the rest of it.Nothing resembles the fact that you are not. Rarely knowing what I’d come
