Dating

Sometimes I sit my nieces down and treat them to tales of dating in the dark ages, before iPhones arrived to save teenkind. Poor nieces. Though they scuff their Uggs on the carpet and stare longingly at the door, I carry on. When I was your age, I say, we had no access to boys. Those of us at mixed schools had a few limp options, and the rest relied on miracles: a hottie met by chance on holiday; a friend’s brother’s friend. There was no social media, no looking someone up, so unless you bagged your hottie sharpish he vanished. Boys surfaced like rare sea-mammals for single sightings before

My foray into the world of online dating was short-lived. Within a few hours of my profile going live, a deluge of young men in their early twenties began to bombard me with messages. I was shocked and somewhat delighted. At my age, I had expected mostly sad widowers and maybe the odd divorced equine veterinarian, encouraged by the pictures of me on my horses. To attract a clamour of Ashton Kutchers was beyond my wildest dreams because, although I was now undoubtedly in the cougar age group, I really hadn’t seen myself as a Demi Moore. When I opened the messages, however, any notion that these handsome young men

Once again Mary has invited some of her favourite figures in the public eye to submit personal queries for her attention. From Jesse Norman MP Q. We’ve been having a little local difficulty at work with one or two colleagues who vigorously assert their loyalty to the organisation, but then go and join a would-be competitor. It’s not that this is bad for morale; on the contrary. But it confuses some of our customers. Your advice would be most welcome. A. Take the tip of a top industrialist who never tried to refuse a resignation: congratulate the deserter effusively on his decision and declare publicly that he and his new

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_13_Nov_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Julie Bindel debate the inequality of marriage” startat=1048] Listen [/audioplayer]In the digital era, those looking for soulmates can be brutally clear about who need not apply. There are websites like Blues Match, for alumni of Oxbridge and Ivy League universities only. Then come the smartphone apps: Tinder, for straightforward dating, and ‘BeautifulPeople’, where members are kicked out if deemed too ugly. The latest arrival is Luxy, an app for those who don’t want to date anyone who needs to split a bill. Or, to use its own description, ‘Tinder without the poor people.’ Luxy has been deplored for its overt snobbery but it is, in

 New York City An architect friend who usually designs Manhattan skyscrapers was recently asked to pitch for a far more interesting project. The client, a senior partner at Goldman Sachs, wanted him to design a family house in upstate New York with a difference. It wouldn’t just be completely ‘off the grid’, with its own power and water supplies, but — and there isn’t yet an architectural term for this — it would be post-apocalypse. The conventional house would be mirrored below ground with pretty much identical living quarters that would be completely secure and so self-contained that there would be facilities to hydroponically grow plants and vegetables without soil.