Arabella Byrne is the co-author of In The Blood: On Mothers, Daughters and Addiction.
A close relation of mine is taking Ozempic. I shan’t name them or give anything else away other than to say this: they are set to ruin our Christmas lunch. They know it, and we know it. Welcome to British Yuletide 2025 – a country where more than 1.5 million people are estimated to be using GLP-1 agonists such as Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy, with the vast majority (90 per cent) obtaining the drugs
Sometime in mid-October, my husband and I begin our annual deliberation: should we host a village Christmas drinks party? The conversation is almost invariably instigated by my charming husband who, mindful of all the invitations we have shamefully yet to reciprocate, feels that we ‘ought to do it this year, at least’. Almost invariably, I am the voice of dissent. The arguments I give against are motivated
Every few years, an obituary for the Sloane Ranger appears. In 2015, the Telegraph proclaimed their death. In 2022, Peter York himself, co-author of The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, wrote a devastating piece in the Oldie on the ‘End of the Sloane Age’. In it, he cast existential doubt on the species altogether: ‘By 2021, there seemed to be every possible shade of Sloane around in London. But were they really Sloanes at all? It looked
There comes a time in every Boomer Granny’s life when she must consider the ‘granny annexe’ as a viable demesne. For Sarah Ferguson, that time has come. Disgraced, broke and soon to be booted out of Royal Lodge, Fergie is reportedly considering her daughter Princess Beatrice’s Cotswold ‘cowshed’ as her next billet. And while this is not the monstrous wedding-cake mansion that is Royal Lodge, it is still
All I seem to do these days is stand in the school car park having anguished, if largely pointless chats: the Mansion Tax chat. But let’s call it the Mansion Tax Mumble, since none of us seem willing to disclose the actual sum we paid for our houses. Soon we may not have to, since
‘He leaped the fence, and saw that all nature was a garden’. So goes the famous Horace Walpole quote about William Kent, the 18th-century landscape designer who saw the garden and its surrounding views as single and unified. Were he alive today, Kent might very soon leap over the ha-ha he designed at the Grade
Before I begin, let me say this: I like children. To my amazement, I even have two of my own. But do I think they should be allowed in pubs? Absolutely not. Increasingly, this is the view taken by London’s publicans, some of whom have decided to introduce a ban on children in pubs after 7 p.m. Egil Johansen, owner of the
Yummy mummies everywhere, put your Veja trainers and frill-collar shirts away, because last week the Times issued a stinging broadside. Being labelled a ‘yummy mummy’ is apparently now so derogatory as to be an ‘almost cancellable offence’. The Yummy is dead, the headline declared, while my phone blew up like the fourth reactor at Chernobyl as Yummies far and wide forwarded me the article. ‘We are not dead!’ many fulminated, while others were more concise: ‘That’s just bollocks; I’ve never worn
‘We’re sorry we missed you; your delivery is scheduled for tomorrow’ the email reads. Another day, another bungled parcel delivery from Evri, the 21st Century equivalent of the hapless postman. Except posties have a certain charm and Evri and its competitors – Yodel, DPD, DHL, FedEx et al. – most certainly do not. If you have ever received three text messages and two emails in the
Economy fliers everywhere, rejoice! After a long stint of what can only be described as tight-fisted meanness, British Airways and other short-haul carriers including Virgin Atlantic have started to compete on service again. The trolley-dolly is officially back. Now, once you are (semi) comfortably seated in economy and cruising at altitude, you will be offered tea
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Big Tech is under the spell of the occult, according to Damian Thompson. Artificial intelligence is now so incredible that even educated westerners are falling back on the occult, and Silicon Valley billionaires are becoming obsessed with heaven and hell. An embrace of the occult is not just happening in California but across the world
In King James VI of Scotland’s Daemonologie, written in 1597, he vigorously encourages witch-hunting and, in particular, the tossing of witches into the sea. Only the innocent would sink. As a way of identifying witches, it was clear and presumably efficient. These days, we have no such clarity. But witches walk among us. I’m not
To a certain extent, all doctoral theses are a bit ridiculous – and therein lies their genius. I am allowed to say this because I spent four years of my life researching French Catholicism’s engagement with the first world war for my doctoral thesis, which I nattily entitled Calvary or Catastrophe? Back then, I was
I did not expect to have to write this, but I can say publicly and without reservation that I absolutely love my tumble dryer. I love its stern prompts to empty the lint filter or the water reservoir. I love the bossy beeping sound it makes when it has finished a cycle, asking me to
By now, you have probably given up on Sober October. I’ve never done it, mainly because I’ve been sober for 15 years. There’s two things, however, that I’m truly thankful for. The first is that I gave up drinking before Instagram stories became a widespread means of social documentary. The second is that I had
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Nick Boles says that Ukraine must stand as a fortress of European freedom; James Ball reviews If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: The Case Against Superintelligent AI, by Eliezer Yudowsky and Nate Sores; Andrew Rosenheim examines the treasure trove of John Le Carre’s papers at the Bodleian; Arabella Byrne
Call me disgusting, but I like rubbish, and I like it best from a skip. I am also in good company. In his 1967 poem, ‘The Bin Men Go on Strike’, Raymond Queneau riffs on the fantasy of bins stuffed with works of art, the ‘Mona Lisa’ lying askew by the spent toothpaste tube, or
Why the hell not? I thought to myself as a friend invited me for a game of padel at her Oxfordshire members’ club, the grotesquely baroque Estelle Manor. As a self-confessed tennis head, I thought this might have the same feel of the restrained geometry and simmering tension of the tennis court that I have spent a lifetime admiring. I imagined a game
Please, make it stop. No sooner had I dug out my Barbour for the wet and windy winter months than I saw another of the brand’s distressing collaborations, this time with fashion designer Sir Paul Smith. Sir Paul, luvvie fashion grandee and founder of the eponymous line that began as a Nottingham-based shirt outfit in
As coats go, it was very nice. A dark blue cashmere Loro Piana number that reeked of quiet luxury. But for a man who once identified as a communist, it was laughable. It was 2016 and I was standing in the atrium of the newly remodelled Design Museum on Kensington High Street. As assistant to
