Family

I failed a moral test last weekend. A friend offered me a free ticket to the Euro 2020 final and I accepted, knowing my 13-year-old son Charlie would be bitterly disappointed. I had told him I’d try to get two tickets so I could take him, but all my efforts had come to nought and we were resigned to watching it at home. When I broke the news that I’d be going but not taking him, he looked heartbroken, as I knew he would be. I spent hours trying to justify it to myself afterwards. Surely, if he’d been offered a ticket by a friend, he would have taken it?

Even a small dog can be quite high maintenance. No, I’m not talking about Mali, our one-year-old cavapoochon, but Bertie, a six-month-old cavapoo. Bertie is Mali’s best friend and — I regret to say — almost constant companion. The reason they spend so much time together is because his owner, a close friend of Caroline’s, drops him off on her way to work and picks him up on her way home. They both think it’s a perfect arrangement because the two dogs can keep each other company, gambolling away all day in our garden, while they get on with their busy lives. But Muggins here, whose office is located at

On Monday, the Prime Minister says, we can hug again. Personally, I never stopped, but then I’ve been corrupted by southerners, foreigners, posh boys and gorgeous homosexuals. In luvvie land (aka London and Twitter), there’s this perception that everyone is desperate to rush into one another’s arms because they’ve desisted for so long. In many places outside the M25, that idea is so nuts it’s comical. In Norfolk, where I was raised, most people meet with a nod and a grunt, and it is the height of good manners not to ‘look at anyone funny’ (in other words, we don’t make eye contact with strangers). If any outsider tries to

Q. Since the relaxation of lockdown, my brother and his wife have started coming to our garden for takeaway meals. My sister-in-law always says she isn’t going to eat at all, so we mustn’t order anything for her. But when the food arrives, she gets a fork and enthusiastically begins picking off everyone else’s plate. Sometimes she just uses her fingers. I do like her very much but, as they married just before Covid, I feel I don’t know her well enough yet to comment or to suggest she orders something for herself. I am always left feeling slightly hungry and a bit irritable, as the whole time I am

Q. I hesitate to bring you this problem, but I suspect it is not that uncommon. Early in our very successful marriage we privately took photographs of each other which neither of us would like our children, or indeed anyone else, to see. They were intended for our old age and now that has arrived we take the greatest pleasure in them; indeed they did much to enliven our most recent Christmas spent on our own. Those of my wife I find quite enchanting: she was extremely attractive in her youth and remains very good-looking to this day. It would be such a shame to destroy them prematurely but at

Not all Facebook groups are forums for insurrection, anti-vaccine propaganda and rude remarks about Bill Gates. Some are just places where people talk about their dads. ‘Middle Class “Your Dad” Talk’ is a group where some 23,000 members share observations and witticisms that all follow the same format: ‘your dad is extremely specific about how the dishwasher is loaded’; ‘your dad judges others’ success by how big their kitchen island is’; ‘your dad was building up the courage to confront the postman about leaving the garden gate open until he saw he had a tattoo on his arm’. Mums are generally left alone. ‘Your dad is extremely specific about how

The wine has been flowing in the Young household this week. The reason I’ve been celebrating is because I managed to get through January without a drink. Like many people, I try to do this every year, but it felt like a particular achievement this year because of the lockdown Boris announced on 4 January. Almost everyone I know used that as an excuse to fall off the wagon. ‘There’s no way I can get through another lockdown without a drink’ was the general refrain. One thing that helped was joining the Wine Society and loading up on bottles throughout ‘dry’ January. It had never occurred to me to join

My great-great-grandmother, born on a Barbadian plantation and transported to what was British Guiana in the 19th century, gave rise to a tribe that has spread across the globe. Weirdly, Covid has brought us together (via Zoom) in a way that used to be reserved for weddings and funerals. My New Yorker nephew found a time of day that could accommodate the Californians, the Canadians and the English rump in London, Cambridge and Nottingham. Harlem’s lights glimmered from another nephew’s screen, while the Florida gang kept their windows shut just in case the neighbours not so far away in Mar-a-Lago decided to drop by. Sadly, someone forgot to let the

I heard the shocking news last week that one of my oldest friends — Richard Edwards — had died suddenly of a stroke. He was just 54 and a picture of health. I met Richard in 1988 when we were both PhD students at Cambridge. He had got the second-highest First in English in his year and was thought to have a brilliant academic career ahead of him, but as the year wore on it became clear that neither of us were particularly attracted to the scholarly life. Instead of dragging ourselves off to the library every day to ‘do the reading’, we would sit in his room drinking wine,

Caroline was pretty heroic during the first lockdown. She’s used to having no children to deal with between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., into which she crams her part-time job, food shopping, exercise classes, tennis lessons, dog walks and a hundred other things. But during our children’s three-month break from school they would appear in the kitchen at 1 p.m. and ask what was for lunch and, in spite of her other commitments, Caroline would always do her best to rustle something up. ‘I’m like Nigella Lawson on steroids,’ she said at the time. But she has drawn the line at repeating this Stakhanovite labour during the

The Dogs Trust charity received 114 calls on 27 and 28 December from people wanting to offload their puppies. No, these weren’t unwanted Christmas gifts, but dogs they’d bought during the first lockdown. According to the RSPCA, demand for dogs soared last year, with breeders and rescue centres reporting unprecedented levels of interest. But some new owners have already become disillusioned. In the past three months, the Dogs Trust has received 1,800 calls from people begging them to rehome their puppies. She darts around with lightning speed hoovering up any stray morsels like a turbo-charged rat On some days, I’m tempted to contact the charity myself. The Young family’s new

We’re closing 2020 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 7: Toby Young on his lockdown nightmare When the news leaked at the weekend that the government was considering telling those aged 70 and over to self-quarantine for 12 weeks to protect them from catching coronavirus, I began to worry about my elderly neighbours. How will they get essential supplies, particularly if the supermarkets’ home delivery services get backed up? What if they’re not on Netflix and have gone through all their box sets? Who will walk their dogs? It was time to summon up that famous Dunkirk spirit and create a network of volunteers willing

As I gaze at my four children on Christmas morning, clambering on to the bed with their stockings, I will think of one particular person to whom, in a roundabout way, they owe their lives. He was a colonel in the first world war and, had it not been for his generosity, my children, their mother, her brothers and sisters, their children, their aunts, uncles and cousins — the entire Bondy clan, in fact — would not exist. The story begins in 1918, as the conflict was nearing its end. Karel Bondy, my wife’s paternal grandfather, was a young Czech officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who had miraculously survived heavy

I’m often asked when I’ll write a pandemic novel. I’m not sure I’d ever be tempted, though the backdrop of Edinburgh’s deserted streets at the height of the (first) lockdown certainly provided food for the imagination. I dare say novels will arrive — some may even be good. But I find that fiction concerning momentous events usually benefits from the dust having settled. Only then can we begin to comprehend the human costs, stresses and implications, by which time there may also be an audience ready to relive the experience. In the near future, however, I foresee a hunger for escape to a gentler and more reasonable world. I’ve been