Privilege at birth displeases wannabe types, and the subject came up rather a lot last week, especially in the Land of the Depraved, where the Bagel Times regards monarchy as anti-democratic and the cause of most human ills, including the common cold, cancer, pimples, varicose veins and even athlete’s foot. In my own alma mater,
We were four round the little table in the nunnery kitchen: a 90-year-old German lady and her man; a nun called Sister Mary of the Angels; and me. We had just come in from the early morning mass. The German lady’s man was a Spaniard of about 35. It was impossible to tell but interesting
The cyclist was on the wrong side of the road coming towards me head-on. It was a winding country lane with blind bends and as I came round one, there was the cyclist, pedalling furiously along the lane on his hard right hand side. I slammed on my brakes, but instead of beeping my horn,
Laikipia Plateau, Kenya Until only a few years ago, the constellations blazed across the sky above the farm at night and there was not a single electric light on any horizon. On many evenings I found myself with my rangers sleeping on the tracks of cattle rustlers heading into Kenya’s wild north with no fences
Order today. Well we had a cracking day out, thanks, and while I admit to a cranial fogginess, I’m feeling pretty chipper overall and can declare our third annual Spectator Clays, Claret and Cognac Cruise (SCC&CC) a thundering success. Forty readers joined us as we pootled along the Thames in the 100-year-old Thames Sailing Barge
I thought one of the benefits of being cancelled – I lost five positions in quick succession at the beginning of 2018 – is that it immunises you from being cancelled again. After all, what more dirt could be thrown at me? The offence archaeologists did such a thorough job four years ago, sifting through
Don’t bother watching those gazillion-dollar TV prequels to The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Who needs gratuitous nudity, multiple dragons and surprise beheadings when the real Nordic legend is bang in front of us, his mighty frame squeezed into the light blue of Manchester City and devouring the grass of the Etihad?
Q. We have been invited to a small but formal dinner in the presence of someone who has been a lifelong hero to my husband. Tragically, my husband has developed anxieties about bladder control in high-level social situations where there may be difficulty accessing a loo. Hence he wants me to refuse this prized invitation.
Bardo St James’s Restaurant – a name which reads like a map – is a vast new Italian restaurant in one of the pale imperial palaces off Trafalgar Square, near Pall Mall and The Phantom of the Opera, which goes on because snobbery and sado-masochism are among the many things that never die. You might
‘We got a gusher!’ exclaimed my husband in his idea of the accent of a Texan oil prospector. Normally, I’m not ashamed of his deranged behaviour, but now it seemed wrong. For we were watching the hypnotic livestream from Westminster Hall of people paying their respects at Queen Elizabeth’s coffin. There was many a tear
