For my birthday, I have been given a gold rouble. It’s the thought that matters, of course — but which would you say was worth more: the rouble, or the gold? The promise to pay, or the precious metal? In the rouble’s homeland this question has always been a no-brainer. Ninety years ago Russia went
Who is more in the wrong, David Blunkett or Kimberly Quinn? Everyone has a view. Let me tell the story. I have deliberately chosen not to talk to Kimberly Quinn, who is publisher of The Spectator. Nor have I spoken to David Blunkett, or anyone who works for him. Last July Kimberly Quinn (she then
Occasionally I walk home from the prison. Usually I take a taxi. Very rarely indeed do I drive; I don’t much care for parking within a mile radius of an establishment from which car thieves are released daily. I turned on the wireless and an unctuously sermonising Church of England voice emerged. ‘We pray for
A loftily named environmental pressure group called the Food Commission has been upset by the sale of bottled water from Fiji in Waitrose supermarkets. The water, it complains, has clocked up 10,000 ‘food miles’ before it reaches Western consumers. ‘Transporting water halfway across the world is surely the most ludicrous use of fossil fuels when
Just what we need: a well-meant effort to gum up the market in houses. This market now seems to be gumming itself up, but never mind. A new Housing Act has been passed into law, and with it the concept of sellers’ packs. Anyone who wants to sell a house will have to put one
In the art of writing, one of the central problems is what to put in and what to leave out. In the past, I have always been one for putting in. I felt myself full of good things I did not want the reader to miss. So my books got longer and longer. This gigantism
Whatever else the re-election of Bush signifies, it was a smack in the face for the intelligentsia. Like a crazed Kappelmeister sitting at a nightmare organ, they pulled out all the stops, from the bourdon in lead to the fiffaro, not excluding the trompeta magna, and what emerged, far from being a thanksgiving gloria in
The postman who calls at 30 Able Road may be a new urban myth but, as myths do, he tells a story. The people at number 30 found that they were getting post for 30 Baker Street, 30 Charlie Avenue, 30 Dog Mews, 30 Easy Street and so on. When they compared notes, they worked
One of the hazards of writing a column about the press is that sooner or later you are bound to be cornered by an editor or journalist whom you have teased. I shall never forget the time I was harangued in the street by the charming wife of my old friend Peter Stothard. Sometimes one
Many of my non-medical friends complain of the pointlessness of their jobs. What they do has no meaning, they say, no intrinsic worth, apart from paying the bills. My friends feel like caged mice which run incessantly inside wheels: an expense of spirit in a waste of effort. ‘At least,’ they say, ‘your job is
Jonathan Dimbleby has been frightening late-night audiences on ITV with a documentary called the New World War. Using interviews with Ethiopean coffee-producers and reels of library footage of hurricanes, Dimbleby explains his thesis: ‘Global terrorism, global poverty and global warming form a toxic trio that promise a catastrophe that will make the horrors of 9/11
It had to happen. A few years ago I announced the demise of the City of London. The old place in its old form had enjoyed a great run but was on its way out, and would now be relaunched as Hong Kong West. As the flag comes down from Cazenove’s masthead, we can witness
What is the purpose of life? Is push-penny really as good as poetry, as Bentham contends? Surely there can have been few of us who have not sometimes wondered whether all our frantic activity — mainly getting and spending — is quite as necessary or important as we like to pretend it is. It is
Relax. You are under no obligation to read the small print. There is a clause in Europe’s constitution about bringing our economic policies — money and tax — into line with our neighbours’, but it must have got past the Prime Minister, because he has flown to Rome and signed us up for it. In
So autumn has come again, with her blushing and animating hand, searing and spotting, tinting and flaming, making hectic and encrimsoning, concealing decay, death and coming annihilation behind a mesmerising anarchy of colour. I have been out painting, down in Somerset, trying to get down on my oblongs of Whatman the blazing furnaces of reds,
If there is one material I particularly relish, it is alabaster. It is slightly soluble in water and therefore defenceless against a rainy climate. So it can’t be used for outdoor work on cathedrals and churches. For internal decoration, however, it is superb, being soft and easy to cut; it takes a high polish and
The man who got it right, in his way, was Al Gore. Quoting Al Jolson, he promised the voters: ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’ This was his message four years ago, when I was in New York, leaning over the rails to watch the two runners in the Great Presidential Stakes as they neared the
When Richard Desmond acquired the Daily Express four years ago there was an outcry. That committed Christian, Tony Blair, immediately had the pornographer turned press baron round for tea, but perhaps that was only to be expected. Almost everyone else was appalled that a man who had made his fortune out of such publications as
From time to time, our ward looks more like a police lock-up than a haven of healing. By every bed there are two policemen preventing the escape of the patient, and usually watching television at the same time. Sometimes they and their captives chat amicably; at other times there is a sullen silence between them.
The news that Tony O’Reilly may be willing to sell 30 per cent of the Independent newspaper seems utterly astounding. It has enjoyed a considerable succès d’estime by going tabloid. From being a catch-up sort of newspaper which did not excel in any particular area, it has become a trendsetter. First the Times followed suit