New York The master of the love letter to New York, E.B. White, eloquently described the city as a place that can ‘bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy’. Like many of us, he believed that the place would last and that it would always matter. White was an optimist, sophisticated and
We gathered around in the sunshine and watched the coffin being lowered into the freshly dug trench. Stratifications visible on the interior sides of the excavation showed that she was being laid to rest in shallet (compacted broken slate) and I felt sorry for whoever it was who had volunteered to dig it by hand.
The Union Jack is flying on the front of my house. After a long discussion with the local council, planning officials confirmed that anyone can fly the national emblem on their home, so long as they don’t use a flagpole, which requires planning permission. I was advised by an official to drape the flag from
With shorter days and leaves falling, I begin to itch for the more sporting, less obviously commercial world of jump racing. But Newbury’s classy card last Saturday, sponsored for the 24th year by Dubai Duty Free, proved the perfect reminder that the Flat too can provide character, good humour and success for the small battalions.
I cannot recall a week in which Britain’s private schools have received better PR. The Labour party has pledged to scrap them because of the huge advantages they confer on their pupils — including ‘lifelong networks for the powerful’, according to Owen Jones. Presumably that’s a reference to Jeremy Corbyn, who, thanks to his private
Q. Every three months or so my PA blossoms into a great beauty for a couple of weeks, then has a savagely short haircut. My wife agrees that the almost shaven-headed look is unflattering, but thinks the problem lies with her young peer group, many of whom work in fashion. She is not the sort
My friend Dominic decided that it was time to convoke a lunch. There were matters to discuss, including that perennial topic, the travails of the Tory party. We met at the end of last week, before the Labour conference. In the old pre-Blair days, Labour conferences were generally run as benefit matches for the Conservatives,
The title of the television review and discussion programme Late Night Line-Up is a curious one. I’d be interested if anyone knows how it was chosen. After the throaty sax notes of Gerry Mulligan’s Blue Boy, Joan Bakewell would leggily engage earnest folk in chatter long after the pubs had closed. Did the guests smoke?
It’s difficult to go into the office nowadays, since most of my colleagues are so distraught by the prospect of a no-deal Brexit that they rarely speak. The finance department have painted European flags on their faces for solace, and spend the day staring blankly out of the window sobbing over a tear-stained picture of
