Life

High life

High life | 30 July 2011

On board S/Y Bushido The thickly pine-forested hills form a perfect backdrop to the not so wine-dark waters off the Peloponnese. Soft greens and blues are Edward Hopper colours — as is the yellowish-white sunlight at midday, the inviolate stillness of noon being a keynote of his paintings. The sea in Greece is mystically wedded

Low life

Low life | 30 July 2011

‘If you want to get off and walk or run along the towpath, we’ll meet you at the fourth lock,’ the skipper had told us after breakfast. Breakfast was a croissant and two cups of tachycardia-inducing coffee. The towpath was a six-foot-wide strip of smooth asphalt between two grass verges. It was drizzling. The coffee

Real life

Real life | 30 July 2011

‘I need to ask you something,’ said Steve the sandwich man, looking me up and down suggestively as he buttered my baguette. ‘I need to ask you something,’ said Steve the sandwich man, looking me up and down suggestively as he buttered my baguette. I like Steve. I call at his sandwich hut just off

More from life

Status Anxiety: Bringing up Boris

What’s the secret of successful parenting? Like most middle-class parents, I don’t just want my children to be happy. I want them to have proper careers as well. I’d like each of them to go to a Russell Group university — ideally Oxford or Cambridge — and then do a further degree. If they win

Dear Mary

Dear Mary | 30 July 2011

Q. I am one of eight retired golfers who once a week enjoy a sociable but not too serious game on our local course. Recently the wife of one of our group has taken to joining us and, although we are all good friends, we would prefer the weekly game to remain an all-male affair.

Drink

Drink: A taste of chivalry

In Rome, there is a palace which is the capital of the world’s smallest state. In Rome, there is a palace which is the capital of the world’s smallest state. The medieval Church had many mansions. As well as orders devoted to prayer and contemplation, there were other bodies, for whom the way of the

Mind your language

Mind your language | 30 July 2011

‘Ha, ha! Caught you out,’ shouted my husband, holding a copy of The Spectator above his head and twirling beneath the hall light as I came in. He showed me a letter from a man (it is always a man) who suggested I thought noctae was the genitive of nox. In one sense, I was

The Wiki Man