Lonely fortress Weoley Castle in Birmingham was revealed to be the least-visited tourist attraction in England, with 5,205 visitors last year. What is there to see? — It is described as the ruins of a fortified manor house built by the Lords of Dudley as a hunting lodge in the 1270s. Visitors can view the ruins from a
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU Commission, made a typically brilliant intervention in the EU referendum debate by arguing that ‘Whoever does not believe in Europe, who doubts Europe, whoever despairs of Europe, should visit the military cemeteries in Europe.’ Cicero made just this point to his brother Quintus, who in 59 bc was about
Democracy or bureaucracy Sir: Professor Garton Ash makes a scholarly appeal for us all to be content with government from Brussels for the foreseeable future (‘A conservative case for staying in’, 5 March). The alternative would involve possible risk. Very true. But the professor skates animbly round two words: governmental system. After numerous combats and
Have you ever set your face against a book? This year sees Charlotte Brontë’s bicentenary and the novelist Tracy Chevalier has edited a short-story anthology each based on the climactic line of Jane Eyre — ‘Reader, I married him.’ Everyone knows it. I agreed like a shot because the brief fitted something I had been
There is a nice row of swastikas at head height in Burlington Gardens, behind the Royal Academy. They are carved below a plaque ‘Founded ad MDCCCXXXVI’. (The date refers, not to the Academy, but to the University of London, which had its offices here until 1900.) The architect was James Pennethorne. His swastikas did not
Q. My niece, who came to stay with me in the country for the weekend, arrived without cash and asked me to lend her some for the tip. I lent £30 which she assured me she would give back immediately, but though we live very near each other in London, she has failed to drop
Whenever I hear a leftie complain about being abused on Twitter, I think: ‘You should try being me.’ A case in point is the journalist Caitlin Moran, who has often taken up the cause of feminists threatened with violence. Among other things, she campaigned for a ‘report abuse’ button in the hope of making Twitter
Home The Bank of England arranged for banks to be able to borrow as much money as they needed around the date of the EU referendum, lest there should be a bank run. After saying in a speech that Britain’s long-term prospects could be ‘brighter’ outside the EU, John Longworth was suspended as director-general of
Looked at from the narrow perspective of how to deal with the lethal business of human trafficking across the Aegean, this week’s deal between the EU and Turkey shows some encouraging signs. Slowly, the EU seems to be realising that the surest way to stop migrants dying in unseaworthy boats is to adopt similar measures
Surely there is a difference between Mark Carney’s intervention in the Scottish referendum last year and in the EU one now. In the first, everyone wanted to know whether an independent Scotland could, as Alex Salmond asserted, keep the pound and even gain partial control over it. The best person to answer this question was
Athens I am walking around downtown Athens watching as thousands of migrants field pitches from smugglers offering alternative routes to Germany and Austria. I ask a friendly policeman 50 years younger than me why he doesn’t arrest the smugglers and throw away the key. ‘Others will take their place quicker than we put the
Nice airport was more or less deserted. Two-and-a-half hours early for the easyJet flight to Gatwick, I had a leisurely cup of tea and a bun at a café kiosk before going through security, sharing a counter with a couple of young gay Frenchmen who were bickering respectfully over the timing of some future arrangement.
‘Racing is 99.9 per cent disappointment,’ said the trainer philosophically, as I sat in the yard sipping coffee, waiting for the vet. She arrived in her pick-up a few minutes later and wound down her window. ‘Am I in the right place?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said, still in sardonic mode. ‘It depends what you’re
I used to enjoy the ghost stories of M.R. James, but I’ve never actually seen a ghost or even believed that ghosts existed. I have visited many allegedly haunted houses in my life but no scary apparition has ever crossed my path. The old house in which my grandparents lived in Lanarkshire was such a
Unless you’re an expert, it often pays to keep quiet at the bridge table — something I really ought to remember. It shames me to think of all the times I’ve made a mistake and then tried to justify it, invariably using flawed reasoning which makes me look even more idiotic. That’s bad enough; but
In eight clues, cryptic indications omit reference to parts of answers; these parts must be highlighted, to reveal the title (two words) of a track on 1D (two words) by the 12 (two words). The title in question defines the other unclued lights. Across 1 Drain ground in place behind square architectural
The starred words in the clues are EYE, RAIL, SAGE, SNAP, TRAP, HIDE, NUTS, GUN, EE. They combine with nine of the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac, the others appearing at 26D and 38A. The Chinese New Year began on 8 February. First prize R.N. Robinson, Sheffield Runners-up Sue Topham, Elston, Notts; Barry Butler,
David Cameron’s referendum campaign trail continued today, with the Prime Minister visiting Chester and giving a speech defending Britain’s membership of the European Union. And on the other side his Cabinet colleague Chris Grayling gave a speech warning about the dangers of continuing to stay in the bloc. Neither speech today was particularly angry with
Laurence Fox has this week joined an increasing band of actors hitting back at misbehaving audience members who seem to forget that they are in public rather than their own living room. He ramped up the drama by launching a foul-mouthed attack on a heckler before storming offstage during a live performance at a London theatre.
