New York As they say, one couldn’t make it up, not even in Hollywood, which is where this Chandleresque saga took place. Ronald Burkle, the supermarket billionaire who has accused a minion at the New York Post of shaking him down, does not look like much, but then billionaires tend not to nowadays. Shakedowns seek
There were four of us last week in the caravan near the beach in north Cornwall for our annual family holiday: me, my boy, my boy’s grandma and my boy’s little half-sister, Amy, aged ten. We were very excited to be bringing Amy this year. Her Mum has agoraphobia and hasn’t been out of the
Democratic Republic of Congo This week I joined United Nations forces in the Congo for an offensive against rebel militias. ‘We’re the only ones who want to fight,’ said the South African colonel, cussing the other blue helmet contingents. ‘They’re too scared to go forwards and I’m tired of it.’ Pakistanis bombarding the opposite hillside
Any day now, soccer’s World Cup will obliteratingly dominate every back page Any day now, soccer’s World Cup will obliteratingly dominate every back page (although this one, it goes without saying, shall be soberly discriminating). On Monday week (7 May) Sven, Sweden’s sexpot sphinx who coaches England, nominates his first batch of players, to be
Q. I think I can offer you a solution to a problem which may plague others who spend intimate time with oenophiles and are driven to distraction by slurping. My brother is a mad wine-lover. He slurps his wine noisily. He is a physicist, and seems to be keen to prove that he can defy
After writing about how difficult it is to find a truly great steak in London, my friend Robbo calls to suggest the Guinea Grill in Mayfair, if it is still there. He says he first went to the Guinea in the 1960s, for a celebratory dinner funded by richer, more sophisticated London relatives — he
There has been a dramatisation of some Jeeves stories on the wireless. The great flaw has been presenting them as slapstick, which hardly works without pictures and ill serves Wodehouse’s writing, which depends so much on playing with language. In what must have been additional dialogue, I heard some annoying anachronisms. Wodehouse’s books have acquired
