Wine

A few years ago, a distinguished cove in the diplomatic service was made High Commissioner to Australia. To prepare himself for the penal colony, he invited three predecessors to lunch, for advice. The first said that he should make contact with the Billabong institute in Sydney. They were experts on the transportees’ economy. The second advised him to befriend Ned Kelly, editor of the Convict Chronicle, who knew where the political bodies were buried, having often handled the shovel. Then it was Peter Carrington’s turn; Peter had held the post in the mid-1950s. ‘Watch out in late January,’ he warned. ‘When the shooting season ends, all your friends will try

The older I get, the more Scrooge-like I become. I’m dyspeptic, misanthropic, curmudgeonly, parsimonious and unsentimental. Caroline, by contrast, is even-tempered, sweet-natured, charitable, generous and easily moved. Yet paradoxically, I love Christmas, whereas she regards it as a time of year to be endured rather than enjoyed. This inevitably leads to a number of arguments and, as with everything else connected with the festival, they’ve become ritualised. So here are the rows that are guaranteed to occur in the Young household at this time of year. The season always begins with a heated discussion about external lighting. My ideal is to go Full Chav, with a giant neon-lit Santa plastered

In the later 1850s, Palmerston was Prime Minister: Gladstone, his Chancellor. It was a successful partnership between two very different characters. As Roy Jenkins used to say, Palmerston’s willingness to put up with Gladstone — never an easy subordinate — proves that he was more that a bombastic Regency rake. At different times, the pair made the two wisest comments ever to emerge from a Liberal (the only two wise comments?). Gladstone: ‘Money is best left to fructify in the pockets of the people.’ Palmerston: ‘Change, change, change: aren’t things bad enough already?’ If modern Liberals talked like that, their party might have some hope of survival. Palmerston’s trenchancy came

Good Saturday, 2015, stepping westward. Autumn sunshine: autumn leaves, almost comparable to New England: pumpkins everywhere, very New England. We were in Sherborne, a town famous for its abbey and castle, but well worth a proper Pevsner-guided exploration. There were obvious questions. When and how did the pumpkin take over from the turnip, ‘trick or treat’ from guising? Why is Halloween, All Souls’ Night, both holy names, associated with witchcraft and other emanations of the dark? As with Walpurgisnacht, we are in the spirit-haunted marches between early Christianity and paganism. After nightfall, we walk in deep shadow. Is that light a -turnip-bogle, as they used to say in Scotland before

It will seem an ungrateful comment after the lunch which I am about to describe, but Manchester has some way to go. In the Midland Hotel, the principal Tory conference hotel and a grand edifice redolent of civic self-confidence from an earlier era, the northern powerhouse could sometimes be mistaken for a 40-watt light bulb. The business centre had been closed for the duration of the conference. The management person who told me this had enough nous to wilt under my incredulous stare. But it remained closed. At a bar, two girls struggled to do half of one girl’s work. Whenever anyone tried to pay by plastic, inaccuracy and chaos

When it comes to nightclubs, many have written, but none has surpassed the Perroquet in Debra Dowa. Le tout Debra Dowa was present, including Madame ‘Fifi’ Fatim Bey, the town courtesan; Prince Fyodor Krononin, the manager; and Seth, the Emperor of Azania. Tension is caused by the arrival of the Earl of Ngumo, six and a half foot of savage aristocracy, demanding raw camel’s meat for his men, some women and a bottle of gin for himself. But once he does obeisance to the Emperor, every-one relaxes. I thought about Black Mischief while giving dinner to delightful young Alex in a more conventional club in London. Youth has many enviable

The Indian summer was still fending off the mists and mellow fruitfulness. But the autumn term was about to begin; the season’s changes would soon be manifest. So it was a day for anecdote and recapitulation; for telling amusing August tales, behind which lurked deeper meanings. A couple of friends had been to the Palio, as everyone should, once. I remember being surprised that several hours of mediaeval pageantry could hold one’s attention, which it certainly did: but more than once? No one would watch Psycho twice. I also remember being surprised that the young of Siena would spend weeks rehearsing: hard to imagine that happening here. The spectacle ends

I’m currently at a French campsite in the Languedoc, having been persuaded by my wife that it would be a good place to spend our summer holiday. She described the campsite as ‘a French Butlins’, which she knew would appeal to me. If I can’t afford to stay at the Hotel du Cap, which I can’t, I’d prefer to be at the bottom of the social pyramid rather than somewhere in the middle. But her main argument was that it would be incredibly cheap —cheaper, even, than renting a house in Cornwall. We’re paying about £100 a day for a ‘chalet’ that sleeps six. There was simply no way we