John Sturgis is a freelance journalist who has worked across Fleet Street for almost 30 years as both reporter and news editor
It’s a statement that’s guaranteed to raise hackles, but I admit: I cycle on pavements. This has become a controversial thing to say after the recent manslaughter conviction of Auriol Grey, who waved and shouted as Celia Ward cycled towards her in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire – resulting in the retired midwife falling into the road to her
It was the end of May 1983, half term week. I was meant to be revising for my O-levels, which were to begin the following Monday, but instead was mooching around town, a teenager ready to be led astray. And when I bumped into a couple of similarly unfocused classmates, that’s exactly what happened. Instead
It happens a couple of times a week: in parks, usually; sometimes outside shops, on Tube trains or in pubs. ‘What kind of dog is he?’ they’ll ask. I answer: ‘Bearded collie crossed with a greyhound which comes out looking like a deerhound but is actually a lurcher.’ But this is pointedly preceded by: ‘She’s
The storm that has engulfed Lancashire Police – after the force revealed that missing mum Nicola Bulley had ‘issues with alcohol’ – has been a long time brewing. Since February 29 2012 to be precise. The Leveson Inquiry into press wrongdoing was in full flow when, on that leap year day 11 years ago, the Met Police
After Prince Harry’s first date with the future Duchess of Sussex, he repaired to a friend’s house off the King’s Road. ‘Out came the tequila,’ he recalls in his much-discussed autobiography, Spare. ‘Out came the weed. We drank and smoked and watched… Inside Out.’ Meghan, however, interrupted his stoned reverie by Facetiming him, and immediately
He was one of the most unlikely pop stars this country has ever produced: extraordinarily badly dressed and famously contrarian, with a voice that sounded more like an angry man shouting than anything recognisable as singing. But Mark E. Smith, front man of the Fall, became one of the most recognisable and eventually revered figures
One of the neologisms of 2022 was the phrase ‘nepo baby’. Short for ‘nepotism baby’, it was coined by younger people, the so-called Gen Z, to describe the syndrome of the increased attention and opportunity afforded to the children of celebrities – in practice giving them a leg-up into a career in modelling, acting or singing.
It’s become one of the traditions of the modern festive period: arguing about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie. The explosive 1988 film features, you may recall, a vest-clad Bruce Willis confounding Alan Rickman and his terrorist cohorts’ evil plans in a Los Angeles skyscraper on Christmas Eve – and it’s peppered throughout with fir
Claire Keegan’s Booker-shortlisted Small Things Like These this year revived the tradition of Christmas short fiction. It’s a deftly done parable about cruelty and kindness in the run-up to Christmas, with actual snow – and tears. Although Keegan’s novella eventually lost out to Shehan Karunatilaka for the Booker, it perhaps served a greater purpose than
Michael Sheen has had a problem with the royal family for some time – and it’s only got worse since William was appointed Prince of Wales. The actor, best known for playing Tony Blair but somewhat to the left of him politically, has criticised the notion of an Englishman being nominal head of the principality.
When England play the USA this evening in Al Khor, Qatar, it will be the twelfth time the two sides have met. England have had the upper hand in most of the previous 11, winning eight and recording scores as comfortable as 10-0, 8-1, 6-3 and 5-0. We easily beat them 3-0 at Wembley just
When England line up against Iran in Doha today, the VIP seats should be studded with former players from both sides. But one who almost certainly won’t be present is a player with a solid claim to having been the greatest Iranian footballer in history. Because Ali Karimi is a wanted man. The 44-year-old is
At breakfast time we were contemplating the catering options at Gatwick. The 1,406 calorie fry-up at Wetherspoonswas £12.99, pint of lager optional – with only a half-hour wait for a table. By lunch we were looking down at the birthplace of Aphrodite, eating grilled sea bream and sipping a chilled Xynisteri white. Petra tou Romiou is located
There is one footballer who will be under particular scrutiny at the Qatar World Cup – but not because he’s playing in it. David Beckham retired as a player, aged 38 in 2013, but nine years on his stature has continued to grow. The former England captain’s profile is so high that those tasked with
George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, was bitten on the cheek by a mosquito some time in early March 1923. The bite became infected. By April he was running a high fever, had pneumonia in both lungs and his heart and respiratory systems were failing. He died in a Cairo hospital on
He is completely bald but his eyebrows are grotesquely hirsute; his ears and chin are both weirdly elongated, as are his bony fingers; and as he creeps up the stairs towards the bedroom of a young woman in white, his hunched frame casts a sinister shadow. Count Orlok in Nosferatu is as instantly recognisable a cinematic figure
As soon as I picked up the parcel, my heart sank. The sheer weight of it gave the game away. Already I could unhappily picture myself struggling to hold it in one hand without straining a wrist while standing on the Piccadilly Line. I’d ordered it after coming across a couple of positive references to
It’s not in Whitehall nor Westminster; not on the central London tourist trail. Instead it’s ten miles away, on the wrong side of the North Circular, an obscurity in the suburbs, rarely visited for its own sake. But Arnos Grove Tube station is one of the masterpieces of 20th century British architecture – and this
Primary school drama has a rule which is a variation on Chekhov’s gun principle: if your child has a part in the school play they won’t get to speak until the end of the final act. And you’ll have to sit through the part of every other child before their moment finally comes. You will
Angela Hui was born into a life of service: Chinese takeaway service. Her parents had fled mainland China, where they experienced borderline starvation under the communist regime before arriving as exotic newcomers to provincial South Wales in 1985. There they become part of a Chinese diaspora, financially sustained by dozens of family-run takeaways dotted across
