More from life

Hot competition

It was to have been Ascot on Saturday. But alternative political duties for CNN intervened. ‘OK,’ said the little green man descending from his flying saucer in Parliament Square, ‘I appreciate that “Take me to your Leader” won’t do right now. But when can you take me to your Leader?’ I had been musing at

Perk of the job

One of the perks of this job is the loan cars. Manufacturers keep press fleets of current models for launches and for loans to motoring writers to try out and write about. When the cars leave the fleet, they are usually sold into the dealer network, from where they are sold to you, as demonstrators.

Twelve for the Flat

During elections, said H.L. Mencken, all the parties rush around the country insisting that the others are unfit to govern — and in the end they are all proved right. I don’t bet on politics because as a part-time political commentator I don’t want to be accused of letting wagers colour my judgment, but I

The real McCoy

Biblical scholars say that five is the number of grace, three the number of perfection. ‘Fifteen, therefore, relates to acts wrought by divine grace.’ I don’t know if Tony McCoy was saying his prayers as his mount Don’t Push It cleared the last and headed round The Elbow for the Grand National finishing line but,

Loyal partners

Espying Katie Walsh at Newbury with a ride for Nicky Henderson, I couldn’t help recalling one bookie’s reaction to the finish of the gruelling four-mile National Hunt Chase for amateurs at this year’s Cheltenham when she and Nina Carberry finished first and second, both earning bans for overuse of the ‘persuader’. ‘Birds first and second,’

My father would be pleased about the launch of a British space agency

Just as a stopped clock is right twice a day, Gordon Brown’s government has finally done something worth celebrating. Britain is launching an executive space agency that will take control of the money spent on space by the different government departments and science funding bodies. It is a belated response to the surprising success of

Voters are seduced, not appalled, by Cameron’s poshness: it’s his secret weapon

I was slightly sceptical of Team Cameron’s decision to unveil their ‘secret weapon’ last Sunday — namely, Dave’s wife Samantha. Not that she isn’t luminously beautiful. And her ability to juggle motherhood with a high-flying career will undoubtedly appeal to many professional women. Rather, it’s her social provenance that concerned me. Wouldn’t her transparently upper-class

Build-a-Bear Workshops are like crack dens for five-year-olds

My son Ludo will be celebrating his fifth birthday this weekend with a party at the Build-a-Bear workshop in Westfield. Those of you who don’t have a small child will be blissfully ignorant of this new fad. Build-a-Bear Workshop is a toyshop-cum-factory in which children can construct their very own teddy bears from scratch. The

Parents are offered their first choice among second-rate schools

It’s become an annual tradition, like the first cuckoo of spring. At the beginning of March, when state secondary schools send out acceptance or rejection letters to anxious parents, a New Labour stooge pops up to point out that the majority of parents managed to get their child into their first choice of school. This

So I’m supposed to take this online persecution on the chin, am I?

Earlier this week I was seriously tempted to call the National Bullying Helpline. Ever since I wrote a blog for the Daily Telegraph questioning whether Alexander McQueen really was a ‘genius’, I’ve become a whipping boy on Twitter, the social networking site. The strange thing is, my chief tormentors are fellow journalists. ‘Alexander McQueen: a

Wazza’s buzz

It is not just the superstars who make a sport. In cricket the Vaughans and Pietersens win the headlines but it is the gritty Paul Collingwoods, making runs when others are losing their heads, who give the England side character. So who expresses jumping’s ethos? Try Warren Marston. A crowd-pulling name? Maybe not. But Warren