Gstaad All Quiet on the Western Front was written in 1929 and became an instant best-seller; in Germany alone more than 3 million copies were sold within 18 months. Hollywood made a film of it the following year and it won an Oscar for Best Picture. I read it during the closing days of the
Two tickets, booked over the phone, in row L of the stalls: £87.50. At the box office in the theatre’s foyer we were handed our tickets by a condescending, black-shirted woman. An unpleasantly condescending black-shirted girl at the top of the stairs demanded to see our tickets before allowing us to go any further. When
At a dinner-party in Italy, from which country I have now returned, a question came up. This was, are women really bitchier than men, and, if so, why, when their behaviour can be so much more exemplary? For some reason this question was addressed to me. I hadn’t recalled, alas, saying a bad word about
Dear Mary… Q. I regularly enjoy Sunday lunch at a premier hotel here in Bangkok. The food is exceptional and the Thai service staff friendly and professional. Staff recognise and greet me on arrival with a warm, formal ‘Good morning, Mr Smith’. A couple of Sundays ago, chatting with an attractive waitress by way of
Some people who didn’t exist have entries in the Dictionary of National Biography and some words that don’t exist have entries in the Oxford English Dictionary. One such is primet, which was ‘erroneously stated by Prior to occur in the Grete Herball as the name of the primrose, and used by him to suggest an
