Mark Mason

The spot where Forrest Gump gets offered a seat is pretty well where the shower is now. I’m spending the night at a campsite in Suffolk, sleeping aboard ‘Texas’, the first converted vehicle offered by American School Bus Glamping. Until this time last year the bus was transporting students to and from school in the

Whatever the problems faced by England’s Test cricketers on the field lately – and they are legion – the players know that one thing at least will go right in this week’s match against New Zealand at Lord’s: the food. The fare at the home of cricket is legendary. Ex-England and Middlesex batsman Mark Ramprakash

During last year’s European Championship, England football fans switched, for some reason, from ‘Three Lions’ to ‘Sweet Caroline’ by Neil Diamond (‘so good, so good, so good’). If anything can make them switch back it’s the Football Association, who this week said they were thinking of dropping the Baddiel and Skinner anthem as England’s official

Britain’s legendary red phone boxes are in the news again. Of course they’re a symbol of the country’s past (about 2000 of them are officially listed buildings) – but what makes them really great is their capacity for reinvention. The story this week was about Ofcom preventing BT from closing down many of the nation’s

And so to Whistling Straits, a venue with a name so ridiculous it could only be something to do with golf. The Ryder Cup is on us again, that biennial experiment to discover which overweight American is loudest at shouting ‘get in the hole!’ Golf shouldn’t be about artificial passion. Don’t get me wrong, the

‘Pub with rooms’ used to mean ‘backpackers’ hostel’, the sort of place with three bunk beds to a dorm and a pound deposit on your towel. But recently the capital’s pubs have realised that by raising their game, they could steal a decent chunk of the London hotel market. In a city where £400 a

Have you ever wanted to fly? For me the urge comes whenever I see a bird hovering directly over a hedge, flying into the wind so it can maintain a position and spot prey. It’s not the prey I’m interested in, just the sensation. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to defeat gravity? Like many of us,

If England go on to win Euro 2020, you might just have Ed Sheeran to thank. The pop star played a morale-boosting private gig for the squad last week at their St George’s Park training camp in Staffordshire. ‘A bit of food, a barbecue – he jumped on the guitar and played a few songs,’

‘A notion at which we had but guessed.’ So said the poet Paul Muldoon recently, publicising Paul McCartney’s forthcoming book The Lyrics, an autobiograpy-through-the-songs based on conversations between the ex-Beatle and Muldoon. The notion in question was the one that ‘McCartney is a major literary figure who draws upon, and extends, the long tradition of

Every weekend Spectator Life brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history … 13 March Earl Grey (born 1764). The Prime Minister gave his name to the tea. It was specially blended for him by a Chinese mandarin to suit the water in Northumberland, where the

Every weekend Spectator Life brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history … 6 March In 1957 Ghana achieved independence from Britain. The country’s subsequent heroes have included Ferdie Ato Adoboe, who holds the world record for the fastest time to run 100 metres backwards

Every weekend the Spectator brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history … February 27 Elizabeth Taylor (born 1932). The actress’s 2011 funeral started 15 minutes behind schedule, on her own instructions. Her spokesman confirmed that she ‘even wanted to be late for her

Every weekend Spectator Life brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history. 20 February Gordon Brown (born 1951). Brown is blind in his left eye. Jack Straw is deaf in his right ear. When Brown was Prime Minister, Straw (the Lord Chancellor) sat to his left in Cabinet,