I received a shocking letter from a 15-year-old schoolgirl called Carola Binney last week. It was a real marmalade dropper. In all my years I’d never seen anything quite like it. Had she really spent the past 11 years in full-time education? It scarcely seemed possible, not at a British school. To my astonishment, all
The debate on whether or not the extraordinary Frankel should contest the Derby seems to be concluded, at least in Henry Cecil’s mind, which is the place that matters. The common view seems to be that no mere horse could repeat over the undulations of the four furlongs longer Derby course the extraordinary physical explosion,
Until now, I thought David Cameron’s best week in politics was the one that began with the inconclusive result of the general election and ended with him standing beside Nick Clegg in the Downing Street rose garden. The skill with which he outmanoeuvred Gordon Brown reminded me of a comment made by Oliver van Oss,
I came in late the other night to discover my wife watching One Born Every Minute, a Channel 4 programme featuring women having babies. I sat down next to her on the sofa and it wasn’t long before my hands were clamped over my eyes. A young woman was howling in pain as her insides
The skies are brightening over Warwickshire, where they breed Aston Martins. The recession reduced staff from 1,200 to 900 but now they’re back up to 1,000 and are opening a dealership in — of all places — Dublin. After spending almost a century in the red, they’ve finally nudged into profit under the leadership of
The Newbury race day that finally for me switched the focus of racing from the jumpers to the sleek equine whippets racing on the Flat was appropriately devoted to the emergency services. Sadly, they are a vitally needed accompaniment to the training and riding of horses. Only in horse racing and motor racing are the
Over the years I have made a habit of starting Grand National Day by visiting Red Rum’s grave near the visiting post and then walking the course to remind myself just how big those obstacles are. Over the years I have made a habit of starting Grand National Day by visiting Red Rum’s grave near
Government reports don’t often make scintillating reading. But the Review of Education Capital by Sebastian James is an exception. Colloquially known as the James Review, it’s an investigation into Building Schools for the Future, a programme of capital expenditure on schools overseen by the last government. It also contains various proposals as to how education
On Tuesday I received an invitation from the Women’s Institute asking me if I’d be prepared to participate in a debate at their annual general meeting in Liverpool on 8 June. They want me to speak ‘in opposition to a motion urging central government to maintain support for local libraries’. You have to take your
Last Saturday, I took my six-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter to the gym at a local school so they could take a karate ‘exam’. If they passed, they would be eligible for a white belt with red stripes — the first rung of the ladder in the Shukokai Karate Association. I have to confess to
Racing folk sometimes wince as the whiskered commentator John McCririck, a professional chauvinist, refers to his wife Jenny as ‘The Booby’. He was at it again in the racecards for this year’s Cheltenham Festival, but I will worry on her behalf no more. Two days after the Gold Cup, I was lecturing on Cunard’s Queen
When I was young I knew an elderly Scottish gentleman who had the good sense to fall for and marry, despite his advanced years, an American widow of verve and charm. Nor did he lack those qualities himself: although half crippled by childhood polio, he became a pilot and a keen motorist. His cars smelt
My son Ludo celebrated his sixth birthday last week and one of his friends gave him a miniature air-hockey game. It’s like the ones you see in amusement arcades, with two pushers, a puck and a goal at either end, but no bigger than a box of Cornflakes. When it was my turn to get
For critics of state education, locked in combat with the teaching unions, it is easy to overlook the fact that some comprehensives do an outstanding job. One example in my neck of the woods is Cardinal Vaughan, a Roman Catholic boys’ school. Last year, 90 per cent of its pupils got five good GCSEs, making
The most colourful sight at Sandown on the Saturday before the Cheltenham Festival was not the jockeys’ silks but the vivid bruising around Ruby Walsh’s eye as he returned on his first winner since breaking his leg in November. The blues, reds and yellows visible on his stitched-up face were the result of a fall
I find it hard not to feel sorry for the Duke of York. Being asked to denounce one’s friends, however unsavoury, can’t be much fun. It must be particularly galling when the politicians insisting on this act of obeisance were themselves hobnobbing with Hosni Mubarak, Zine-al-Abidine and Colonel Gaddafi until about a week ago. In
One of the most important milestones in the course of setting up a taxpayer-funded school is the funding agreement. This is a contract between the Secretary of State for Education and the trustees of the school setting out the terms on which he agrees to finance the school. He can terminate the agreement in certain
The motor industry likes anniversaries because they help sell cars. This year is the centenary of Ford’s assembly plant at Trafford Park in Manchester — its first outside North America — which produced the Model T from kits. It’s also the 50th birthday of the E-Type Jaguar (how many times will we see the word
Expensive research projects don’t always produce the results anticipated by those who commission them. Take the cosmetics company which launched a study into what perfume drove men wild and came back with the simple answer: bacon. It made me think of the millions of dollars America’s aeronautics industry spent on perfecting a ballpoint pen that
You have to take your hat off to Michael Gove. In spite of the Herculean task he has saddled himself with — saving the state education system of this country — he has managed to find time to produce a brilliant piece of satire. I’m referring to a blog on the Local Schools Network entitled