The Martello Towers — that chain of 103 little fortresses built in the early 1800s along the south and east costs of England to repel a feared Napoleonic invasion — were condemned by William Cobbett at the time as a huge waste of public money; and so they turned out to be, for the British
An American journalist called David Carr wrote an amusing piece for the New York Times earlier this week about the latest British invasion. To hear him tell it, we’ve captured the commanding heights of the US media, including Vogue, Cosmopolitan, NBC News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily News and, of course, the
My collection of poultry here in Northamptonshire (consisting at present of six ducks and eight hens) includes two little chattering call ducks named Boris and Marina. I called the drake Boris after the Mayor of London, and its partner Marina after the Mayor’s wife. The poultryman who sold them to me said that call ducks
For a moment it seemed incongruous reading obituaries in the same week of Sir Henry Cecil and of Esther Williams, the Hollywood star whom most of us only ever remember seeing in a swimsuit amid whirling patterns of leggy lovelies in water ballets. Then I recalled her comment that the only thing Hollywood’s moguls ever
I made my first skateboard at the age of 12 by pulling apart a roller skate and nailing each half to a plank of wood. Less than half an hour later, my mother was taking me to the family GP to have my little toe stitched up. She decided to buy me a proper one
When did it become a tradition to organise expensive birthday treats for your children? I don’t want to sound like a character in Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but when I was a boy the most I could hope for on my birthday was a quick game of football with my dad in Highgate Woods.
Great wealth has always bred envy and resentment among the rest of us, which is why even in ancient times people liked to believe that it would be its possessors’ undoing. Thus one of the myths about King Midas of Phrygia was that, having sought and been granted the gift of turning everything he touched
My irritability grows with age and tends to attach itself to things that surprise even me — for example, to the widely popular sight of people riding horses on country roads. The smug, self-righteous look on their faces makes my blood simmer dangerously. And another thing that particularly grates with me at the moment is
After Ruler Of The World had won the 234th Derby, the owners, the Coolmore team, were asked if it hadn’t been something of a hostage to fortune giving the horse such a name. Drily John Magnier replied, ‘Not really. There have been plenty of bad American presidents.’ Given the struggle between the two top racing
One of the many things I’m grateful to my father for is inventing the word ‘meritocracy’. He coined it in 1958 to describe a society in which social status is determined by ‘merit’, which he defined as a combination of intelligence and effort. As a member of the Labour party, he thought that such a
I’m writing this from New York where I’m spending a few days visiting elementary schools. It feels odd to be back, particularly in my new role as an ‘educationalist’. The last time I was here I was enjoying 15 minutes of fame as a judge in an American food reality show called Top Chef. I
When I was a child there was never any doubt that I would go to a boarding school. My father, my uncle and my elder brother had all gone to Eton, and it was assumed that I would eventually go there, too; but I would first be expected to board at a preparatory school with
My mother’s father, Sir Richard Paget Bt, was not just an old-fashioned Somerset landowner but also an amateur scientist, artist and musician of boundless energy and curiosity, whose achievements included the writing of a book on the origins of human speech, the invention of a sign language for the deaf, the hand-crafting of musical instruments,
I have a weakness for the versifier Ogden Nash and one of my favourites is his observation: Shake and shake the ketchup bottle First none will come and then a lot’ll. It has been a bit like that this past year with my punting. Last year’s Twelve to Follow for the Flat didn’t lose us
When are you truly middle-aged? ‘The years 20 to 40 are what you might call the fillet steak of life,’ said Philip Larkin. ‘The rest is very much poorer cuts.’ Some might dispute this and put the turning-point at 45, while others will maintain it’s all about how old you feel rather than your biological
I sometimes think that, by the time I die, my entire life will have been blighted by sterile, unresolved arguments about Europe. I have to admit that the foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 made little impression on me at the time; but I was only 11 years old, Britain wasn’t
I was in my garden office on Monday afternoon when I heard a loud noise behind me, as if someone had jumped over the back fence. Seconds later, a strange man walked past the window. I emerged gingerly from my office and found myself face to face with a giant. At first glance, he looked
I am on my first ever visit to Sweden and enjoying it greatly. My idea of this country had recently become rather confused. I used to picture it as a social democratic paradise, a tolerant, law-abiding welfare state in which everyone was a good and caring citizen. But then came the Wallander television series and
Working partnerships don’t always bring the results expected. I heard lately of a 12-year-old girl encouraged to spend a day on work experience with a relative in the building trade. After a day sorting correspondence, tidying files and making cups of tea on demand, young Emily returned home with a crisp ten pound note. Her
Last week saw the launch of the Bad Grammar Awards, an annual contest in which prizes are handed out for poor English. Actually, ‘prizes’ is probably the wrong word since no one wants to win them. No one, that is, apart from A.A. Gill. He entered himself and submitted a badly written email that he’d