Michael Beloff, QC and past president of Trinity College Oxford, has just had his memoir reviewed in The Spectator, and it brought back memories. Here’s this really good man, the type who does the work, believes in the system, plays by the rules and subscribes to the old graces of courtesy and politeness, but the
Here come the global elites. They love it here. Their spiritual second home. The heat, the rosé, the food, the service, the quaint and deserted villages. One way and another I get to meet some of them. Catriona manages holiday villas and those renters she likes she asks up to our place for a drink.
My phone buzzed and rang while I was doing the horses until I thought, fine, I’ll call the Defence Secretary back. I sat down on a picnic chair by the muck heap and dialled. He was extremely courteous. He just wanted to point out that he really didn’t want to be Prime Minister. The profile
The latest heatwave reminded me of my brief career as a marijuana farmer. This wasn’t in the summer of 1976, when I was 13, but three years later, by which time my family had moved to Devon. My father had been commissioned to write the biography of Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst, the founders of Dartington
Q. I was billeted for a party in Norfolk with a couple previously unknown to me. They were more than welcoming but quite formal – hence I felt awkward about asking them if they could change a £50 note so I could leave £10 for their cleaner (it was all I had in my wallet).
In the battle of ideas, it is sometimes necessary to make a tactical withdrawal. That is now the case over climate change. This should not be confused with a full retreat. But in the circumstances, those who insist on the need for lifestyle changes have a point, at least when it comes to wine. Some
‘Come on, old girl,’ said my husband as though encouraging a cow stuck in a ditch, ‘you must know.’ It was because I’d asked him in the far-off days of last week what woman meant, just after Rishi Sunak had said: ‘We must be able to call a mother a mother.’ Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss
Or when their arms their legs their hands their clumps of feet entangled and she asks which of them belong to her and he murmurs Be patient.
He’s got an old truck in the driveway, Hot cup of coffee in his hands, A way of life he’s known since his childhood, First rays of the morning sun Breaking through the clouds He plans his day in the farm He knows he’s gotta give his best ’Cos all he’s got is in
She appears in the window. She appears to be watering the plant. I need to be in your hair he whispers into her ear. His tongue drains the room of light pitched with the fever of is there someone else is there is there In his voice she can hear a leaf loosening from its
(after Mallarmé) The smoke rings I cannot blow seem summations of my soul one by one by one they roll scattered with another O their trembling grey bears witness to incendiary art keep your ashen mind apart from the buried fire’s red kiss thus whole choirs of romance fly up to lips
Hello, and welcome to episode one of What’s in My Frunk?, the first in an occasional Spectator series of news and advice for the electronic motorist. In this edition we’ll be discussing one of the unexpected benefits of owning an electric car. The space under the bonnet vacated by the engine often provides a small
President George W. Bush used to quote his fellow Texan Robert Strauss who famously declared: ‘You can fool some of the people some of the time, and those are the ones you need to concentrate on.’ Listening to the economic arguments of most of the candidates for the Tory leadership last week, they clearly take
