Sex
Less alcohol, fewer drugs: how the British seem to be shedding their harmful habits
Gripped by his habitual despair, the French novelist Gustave Flaubert wrote to a friend in 1872, ‘I am appalled at the state of society. I’m filled with the sadness that… Read more
The unfair sex - how feminism created a new class divide
James is 15 years old, coming up to his GCSEs; and the researcher he is talking to is clueless about girls. Yes, he tells her, girls at his school, underage… Read more
Lord Rennard doesn’t need an inquiry. He needs a swift kick to the shin
I was seated at a rather stiff and formal BBC dinner a dozen or so years back, one of those ghastly occasions upon which the boss class attempt, painfully, to… Read more
Stop shouting at Hilary Mantel – there are real outrages to address
It started the other week, when David Cameron was in India. Although it started like a bout of malaria starts, so I suppose the more precise term would be ‘recurred’.… Read more
Sorry, but Parliament is full of sex pests
The news is dominated by tales of ‘sexual misconduct’ by men in positions of power, and nowhere is the smell of sleaze as strong as in Westminster. Our politicians work… Read more
Thinly veiled threats
No one could ever accuse Shereen El Feki of lacking in courage. To spend five years travelling around the Arab world in search of dildos, questioning women about foreplay and… Read more
Of vice and verse
‘All human life is binary’, explains a Vestal Virgin to the time-travelling heroine of Ranjit Bolt’s verse novel, Losing It. Young and lovely, Lucy’s plan is to lose her virginity.… Read more
2 March 2013
Eight years ago I was in Rome for The Spectator to write a piece about the election of a new pope after the death of John-Paul II. Within two days,… Read more
Bookends: A life of gay abandon
Sometimes, only the purest smut will do. Scotty Bowers’s memoir, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars (Grove Press, £16.99) is 24 carat,… Read more
More sinned against than sinning
When I saw the title of this book, then read that it only covered the period 1600-1800 I hoped this would be a riot of comedy, something along the lines… Read more
Acting strange
Reviewing Lindsay Clarke’s Whitbread-winning The Chymical Wedding a small matter of 20 years ago, and noting its free and easy cast and wistful nods in the direction of the Age… Read more
The French connection
If ever there was a novel to which that old adage about not judging a book by its cover could be applied, it’s this one. If ever there was a… Read more
Same old perversions
Memory Lane always looked so unthreatening to me. But this is Bret Easton Ellis, so a cast reunion for the characters he first wrote about in Less Than Zero 25… Read more
Physical and spiritual decay
The most striking thing about Piers Paul Read’s early novels was their characters’ susceptibility to physical decay. The most striking thing about Piers Paul Read’s early novels was their characters’… Read more
Schlock teaser
The somewhat straightlaced theatre-going audiences of 1880s America, eager for performances by European artistes like Jenny Lind and solid, home-grown, classical actors such as Otis Skinner, were hardly prepared for… Read more
A rather orthodox doxy
‘His cursed concubine.’ That was the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys’ judgment on Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn. ‘His cursed concubine.’ That was the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys’ judgment on… Read more
Cherchez la femme
The 22nd Earl of Erroll, Military Secretary in Kenya in the early part of the second world war, was described by two of his fellow peers of the realm as… Read more
The ultimate price
Lesley Downer is one of the most unusual authors writing in English. Years ago, determined to become an expert on the Japanese geisha, ultra-sophisticated entertainers and hostesses who are neither… Read more
Fine artist, but a dirty old man
I have always been sceptical of those passages in the ‘Ancestry’ chapters of biographies that run something like this: Through his veins coursed the rebellious blood of the Vavasours, blended… Read more
Latest blogs
- Lee Rigby named as victim of Woolwich attack Sebastian Payne
- The friendless Help-to-Buy scheme Isabel Hardman
- Nothing to do with Islam? Douglas Murray
- Why it’s not the 1990s all over again for the Tories James Forsyth
- You’re going to lose. It is only you against many. Alex Massie
- PM avoids knee-jerk response to Woolwich attack Isabel Hardman
- David Cameron’s statement on the Woolwich attack The Spectator
