Hugo Rifkind is a writer for the Times.
It’s more of a vague aspiration than a new year’s resolution, but 2012, I have decided, is going to be the year in which I come to terms with sport. Because I’m going to have to. Because I suspect that not being keen on sport in London in the year of the Olympics is going
It’s a remarkable stroke of luck for a columnist, but I have no views whatsoever on the euro. It’s not deliberate, this, just a function of my age. Most columnists seem to have started forming their euro views some time prior to 1992, and I simply wasn’t that sort of 14-year-old. ‘Do you worry about
I suppose we might all be quite wrong about what it’s like to be Pippa Middleton. I suppose that’s perfectly possible. When Hugh Laurie wrote his novel The Gun Seller, I remember being told he submitted it under a pseudonym, so terrified was he that a grasping publisher might be willing to publish any old
For months now, the whole idea of the Leveson inquiry into press standards has been dimly reminding me of something. Only recently did I figure out what it was. You know when anthropologists descend upon some almost-doomed Patagonian tribe, desperate to document their language, costumes and strategies for spear-throwing, nose-boning and rat spit-roasting before the
What I’m lacking, really, is any sense of the parameters. As I understand it, a best-case scenario involves the Greeks doing what they’re told. Everybody else tightens their belts a bit and there’s a bout of quite dispiriting inflation, followed by the ejection of a couple of countries from the euro, the slow retrenchment of
How long do you suppose it takes Chris Huhne to shop for the most competitive energy bill for all seven of his houses? Ages, I reckon. If he had been driving during that infamous speeding incident on the M11 — and everyone knows, of course, that he wasn’t — then this would surely have been
How long do you suppose it takes Chris Huhne to shop for the most competitive energy bill for all seven of his houses? Ages, I reckon. If he had been driving during that infamous speeding incident on the M11 — and everyone knows, of course, that he wasn’t — then this would surely have been
There’s a great bit in an episode of Yes, Minister during which Sir Humphrey Appleby explains to Jim Hacker why women are a minority, despite there being so many of them. There’s a great bit in an episode of Yes, Minister during which Sir Humphrey Appleby explains to Jim Hacker why women are a minority,
One should be wary, as a general rule, of making general rules based on personal experience. This is a general rule I’ve made, admittedly, on the basis of personal experience, which I’m aware is problematic, but there you go. I always think of the time, at school, when a bunch of my fellow 14-year-olds had
The reason why everybody gets so shrill over abortion, I’ve often thought, is that nobody is quite prepared to admit what they are talking about. By which I don’t mean ‘the slaughter of babies’. I mean the pros and cons of a system of morality that is coldly utilitarian, and nothing else. Oh God, you’re
I keep an iron bar under my bedside table. I was telling a colleague about it the other week, while mobs were rampaging across London. ‘ I keep an iron bar under my bedside table. I was telling a colleague about it the other week, while mobs were rampaging across London. ‘Where did you get
I’m not expecting sympathy. Really, I’m not. But there was a time, and really not so long ago, when you knew where you were with news. Day one, thing happens. Day two, thing gets in the papers. Then, on day three, the parasites like me weigh in. That’s how it worked back in the distant
The same conversation, over and over again. ‘Well, you can’t write about it, can you?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Duh! Rupert Murdoch? He wouldn’t let you.’ ‘You’re quite right, actually. He called this morning. “There are questions being asked in parliament,” he said. “The BSkyB deal might fall through and Andy Coulson got arrested the other day.
You know those jokes you hear which immediately send you into a furious rage at the fact that you didn’t think them up yourself? At least, I assume you do; I don’t think it’s just a quirk of having a profession whereby your livelihood depends on stuff that other people just do for a hobby.
I’m not sure it’s fair to call Colonel Gaddafi ‘paranoid’. I’m not sure it’s fair to call Colonel Gaddafi ‘paranoid’. Not really. ‘Paranoid’ is what the King of Bahrain would be if he decided that western governments actually did care that he was rounding up protestors — and the doctors who treat them, and reporters,
I’ve always wondered about the strike-rate of men who, in that fine media phrase, ‘aren’t safe in taxis’. I’ve always wondered about the strike-rate of men who, in that fine media phrase, ‘aren’t safe in taxis’. It must be pretty high, you’d have thought, otherwise we’d tend to hear about them before they, for example,
Am I allowed to say this? Hell, I’m going to anyway. Am I allowed to say this? Hell, I’m going to anyway. I’ll deny it if it ever gets me into trouble. I’ll claim The Spectator mistakenly put my byline on top of a column by somebody else. ‘Wasn’t me,’ I’ll say, when the extraordinary
I don’t know how Silvio Berlusconi finds the time. I don’t know how Silvio Berlusconi finds the time. Me, I’m ragged. Get up, write a bit, wash, eat, feed the child, stagger to nursery, stumble to work, stay there, go home, eat again, fall asleep on sofa watching The Killing; that’s pretty much my lot.
But what was Oliver Letwin on about, anyway? Why doesn’t he want more people from Sheffield taking holidays? And why tell Boris Johnson this? ‘We don’t want to see more families in Sheffield being able to afford cheap holidays,’ he apparently told Boris, who told the world. But what was Oliver Letwin on about, anyway?
In the world of sectarian Scottish football, as you may know, they have adopted the Israeli-Palestinian fight as their own. Celtic fans wave Palestinian Authority flags, in an attempt to draw parallels between the Middle East and the troubles they wish people were still having in Ireland. Rangers fans wave Stars of David in response.
