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Saturday 17 May 2008

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Peter Hoskin

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High life

Downers and uppers

Taki

Wednesday, 2nd January 2008

New Year’s Eve parties cannot be described in lyrical terms, recalling perhaps the elegance of poetry by, say, Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde’s decadence being more like it. I am not among those who hate New Year’s parties; in fact, on the contrary. Let’s start with the bad news. The worst New Year’s ever was 31 December 1984, in Pentonville. Now that was a real downer. Talk about a party that never took off. On that particular night it never even got started. Everyone was locked up by 7 p.m., and most of the jailbirds were asleep by the time the clock struck 12. I stayed up by force of habit, but all it did was make me more miserable. Looking back at my description of that night in the immortal jail memoir Nothing to Declare, I see that particular New Year’s Eve was the first time I felt the worst was over. From then on it was only a matter of time and patience. There are certain psychological barriers while one’s doing bird, the obvious ones being birthdays of loved ones, holidays, and so on. For me that night was the penultimate barrier to the countdown, which begins after the halfway point has been reached.

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Say a little prayer

Alex James

Alex James leads a Slow Life

Time for one more

Jeremy Clarke

Jeremy Clarke on his Low Life

The lives of others

Taki

Taki lives the High Life

The Turf

Robin Oakley

Horizontal racing

Dear Mary

Mary Killen

Your problems solved

Rural poor

Aidan Hartley

Aidan Hartley on the Wild Life

Of vice and men

Taki

Taki lives the High Life

God’s role in politics is not to underwrite bad ideas

Rod Liddle

How those in power take the Almighty's name in vain

Blair may be about to convert, but will that make him a Catholic?

Fraser Nelson

Tony Blair’s coming conversion to the Catholic faith will not be welcomed by all Catholics. There are many in the Vatican, and the Catholic church in this country, who wonder how a politician with his voting record can be admitted to the church.

This Middle East summit is a distraction that will achieve little

James Forsyth

The Annapolis Middle East summit won’t produce anything more than a commitment to hold another meeting. But the real worry is that Condoleezza Rice’s intense focus on the Israel Palestine question could distract her from more pressing matters in Iraq, Pakistan and North Korea.