New York I find most films nowadays as fascinating as a lengthy history of orthodontics but then I’m spoilt rotten, having watched old black-and-white pearls such as From Here to Eternity, The Asphalt Jungle and My Man Godfrey. When Chariots of Fire came out some 40 years ago I went bananas. My uncle had competed
Earlier in this run of glorious October sunshine I was languishing on the bed in the middle of the afternoon not feeling up to much. The phone rang. Catriona. Could I manage to get down the path to help carry two heavy shopping bags back up to the house? ‘I’m on my way, mon chou’,
‘My phone says I can’t go out until Tuesday, so I can’t come and meet you,’ said my friend. And she repeated this down the line several times, as I insisted I did not understand. I had nipped outside the hairdresser with my hair in highlighter foils to take her call and was standing on
Getting to grips with Burgundy and its wines is a life’s work. But what greater quest or hobby could there be? Trainspotting? Quilting? Collecting postman’s hats? I think not. As you know — well-versed wine-loving Spectator reader that you are — there are just two grape varieties to bother with in Burgundy: Chardonnay and Pinot
I’m optimistic that the government won’t implement ‘Plan B’, let alone impose another lockdown — but not because sceptics like me have won the argument. Why do I say that? Because the public debate is about whether another lockdown is necessary, with the participants on both sides taking it for granted that non-pharmaceutical interventions are
Not so much the hair dryer: more a gentle home perm. Contemplating the increasingly less youthful visage of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as he looked on powerlessly while his very expensive Manchester United side were dismembered by Liverpool, you couldn’t help wonder what Sir Alex Ferguson, glowering and irascible in the stands above, would have done
Q. Our two daughters often bring friends down for the weekend. These friends are more than welcome; we enjoy their company and most have perfect manners — except they never leave a tip. Our daughters claim that no one of their age group (early twenties) carries cash and that even if they remind their guests
Whitcomb’s is in The Londoner hotel on the south-west corner of Leicester Square. The Londoner calls itself ‘the world’s first super boutique hotel’, which may mean that it is the world’s biggest small hotel. Or its smallest big hotel. I don’t know. Whatever its existential status, the developers destroyed an art deco cinema — the
‘No, darling, I certainly wouldn’t call you a witch,’ said my husband. ‘You’re not thin enough.’ The Oxford English Dictionary has just published a new entry for witch. It is less dismissive of old women. The former version spoke of a ‘repulsive-looking old woman’. Now it is ‘a term of abuse or contempt for a
Next he told us how he’d creep to the edge of the tip with a broken chunk of cistern or sink raised above his head and before letting it go, them black rats, super quick, big as rabbits, tails fat as rope, gone. Other places where they usually get and that tea time was a
In 1986 a young Mark Johnston, having acquired a derelict yard on the Lincolnshire coast, phoned the Jockey Club to enquire about a licence to train. He was asked what experience he had. ‘I’m a vet in practice.’ Back came officialdom’s less than encouraging reply: ‘Just because you’re a vet doesn’t mean you can train
