More from life

A few weeks ago my friend James and his wife got a cat. They live in a leafy street in Holland Park, yet they’re so overprotective they refuse to allow Louis out of the house. His wife won’t even leave him alone, insisting they get a ‘babysitter’ if they go out. As the owner of

‘The basic principle of English social life is that everyone thinks he is a gentleman,’ wrote Evelyn Waugh. ‘There is a second principle of almost equal importance: everyone draws the line of demarcation immediately below his own heels.’ That was written 55 years ago and today almost exactly the opposite is true. According to a

It is minus two and the paddock behind Epsom’s famous South Hatch stables, still dusted with snow, is bone-hard as the horses circle for inspection by trainer Jim Boyle. Come off on this ground and you could easily snap a collarbone. But there is not a whisper of apprehension. When Wunder Strike, who scored his

As a columnist, I’m often asked whether I deliberately place myself in embarrassing situations for the purpose of furnishing myself with comic material. The answer, regrettably, is no. My life is humiliating enough without me having to court embarrassment. However, when I read that a dating site called beautifulpeople.com had expelled over 5,000 members for

If, like me, you’re convinced you’ll never be truly happy until you’ve shinned up the greasy pole it is easy to forget that not every high-status indicator is desirable. For instance, if I had £100 million my wife’s constant threats to divorce me might actually carry some weight. Then there’s the fate that befell David

I recently received an email from a friend asking if I would contribute to a book he’s editing entitled What Matters Now: prescriptions for a simpler life. ‘A new genre of literature is emerging about the roots of happiness,’ it began. ‘Authors like Alain de Botton, Oliver James and Naomi Klein argue that the materialist/celebrity

Shame has descended on the Young household this Christmas. When my wife picked up our four-year-old from school last week she was intercepted by his teacher who wanted a quiet word. ‘Oh no,’ she thought. ‘What’s Ludo done now?’ In fact, it was more a case of what I’d done — or failed to do.

At the age of 25, the poet and critic William Ernest Henley lay in hospital suffering from an illness that had kept him bedridden for three years. He had been diagnosed with tuberculosis of the bone at the age of 12 and his left foot was amputated just below the knee. He’d just been told

As readers of this column will know, I’ve spent the last year leading the efforts of a 250-strong group of local parents to start a new state secondary school in west London. One of the toughest things about this crusade is constantly having to bite my tongue. As a journalist, I used to delight in

I watched Shadowlands again the other day, Richard Attenborough’s film about C.S. Lewis’s relationship with Joy Gresham, and was struck by one scene in particular. Anthony Hopkins is sitting beside the hospital bed of Debra Winger when suddenly she takes a turn for the worse. He leaps from his chair and runs out into the

It was one of those moments when a clunking great pile-driver comes up and thuds straight into your duodenum. I can weave through the form for a 24-runner handicap at the sputtering fag end of the season. I can summon the maths to cope with a series of cross doubles at, say, 13–8, 11–4 and,

I was slightly alarmed by the news that Harrow Council is recruiting 2,000 residents to join a network of ‘Neighbourhood Champions’. Their job will be to keep an eye out for evidence of graffiti, fly-tipping, littering and excessive noise, posting tip-offs on an anonymous website. What if the scheme is successful and other councils follow

How can Flat racing keep its public enthused when the moment a superstar emerges he is whisked away to other duties? Winning the 2000 Guineas, the Derby, the Coral Eclipse, the Juddmonte International, the Irish Champion Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Sea The Stars gave us a glorious summer. But at only

Americans taking offence on behalf of poor ‘victimised’ foreigners is offensive — to me Oh dear. I may have to write a book called How to Lose More Friends and Alienate More People. In a recent episode of Top Chef, the American cooking show I appear on, I complained about the other judges’ insistence on

It takes a lot to keep me away from Newmarket’s Champions’ Day meeting but the prospect of an hour on stage at Cheltenham’s Literary Festival with Ruby Walsh and Paul Nicholls talking about Paul’s autobiography Lucky Break (Orion, £20) was lure enough. The champion trainer’s careers master might have been surprised to find the ever-reluctant