Bibendum is a hushed restaurant on the first floor of the Michelin House on the Fulham Road. (Bibendum is the name of the Michelin Man; as such, he is the only restaurant mascot I can think of who is a morbidly obese drunk, and here of all places. It is a noble gesture in a
The most tired cliché in English, suggests Orin Hargraves, the American philologist, is at the end of the day. I’ve just read a review in the Times Literary Supplement of his book on clichés, It’s Been Said Before, published not this year, or in 2016, or 2015, but in 2014. This seems an admirable attitude
Having worked flat-out to defend judges over the Article 50 case in the Supreme Court, the BBC has gone the other way, in relation to the judiciary, over Grenfell Tower. Its news coverage is working hard to displace the retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick from his appointment to chair the inquiry into the fire. Groups
Just a few weeks ago, the Conservatives triumphed in the local government elections and Theresa May was hailed as an all-conquering Brexit Boudicca who could do no wrong. Now, after her general election humiliation, an opposite view has taken hold: that the government is a disaster, the country is in an irredeemable mess, Brexit has
A trip to the supermarché at the beginning of our French month yielded many of the necessary things one also buys at home, but even washing powder acquires romance when sporting a French label, and the fresh fish, meat, veg and wine sections are far bigger than ours, with mountains of lettuce and seven different
Home Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, urged colleagues to make the case for ‘sound money’; he said, ‘We must hold our nerve,’ as he came under pressure to end the public-sector pay cap of a 1 per cent rise a year. Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, thought that pay rises could be awarded
The subtraction reveals the link between the unclued lights which saw light then. Three unclued lights consist of two words, and others form four pairs. In addition, a personal announcement is revealed clue by clue, for starters. Across 1 Jaunty seat astern with hot bearing (13, two hyphens) 9 Unitarian’s cross, interrupted by vulgar
Investors are increasingly turning to shareholder activism to make their views heard, and their campaigns are working. As public trust in large businesses and politicians is at an all-time low, many argue that, in the right hands, activism is more effective than political intervention in curbing corporate excess and poor governance. According to research by
The Government’s eleventh-hour political solution to Stella Creasy’s abortion amendment to the Queen’s Speech could create an unhelpful precedent within the delicate balance of the devolution settlements. I have long opposed the abhorrent abortion policies both north and south of the Irish border, so my concerns about last Thursday’s funding fudge to allow women from Northern Ireland
A thread runs through several of the stories that have defined this turbulent summer: reporters have been shocked by the levels of hostility they have encountered. ‘They hate us,’ one seasoned producer told me returning from a Grenfell Tower protest. ‘I haven’t felt anything like it in 20 years.’ When the battalions of the media
John McEnroe’s father calls. In fact, he calls McEnroe’s manager’s phone, presumably because dad doesn’t have a direct line to the great man himself. John Sr, who is tennis-mad, has a request: can he come with his son to a veterans’ tournament in Belgium? McEnroe is horrified. Having dad around is a major drag. ‘I
One of the unclued 4-letter lights is placed in the very middle of another to form each of the four unclued 8-letter solutions: 8, around 30=44; 19, around 22=2, 37, around 25D=20; 38, around 21=13. First prize Val Urquhart, Butcombe, North Somerset Runners-up John Kitchen, Breachwood Green, Herts; Ros Miller, Oxford
There is much celebration in Brussels today about what’s being described as a EU-Japan trade deal, but for political rather than economic reasons. Donald Trump has arrived in Hamburg for the G20 summit where he finds himself cast as a wicked protectionist, at odds with a pro-free trade global order. To hammer home this point, the EU is
After days spent fighting over the public sector pay cap, today marked a return to politics as usual. The Labour party bickered about the threat of mandatory re-selection and the Conservatives tried to hide their differences on Brexit. Michel Barnier – the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator – used his first major speech since talks began
G20 summits are usually dreadfully dull affairs, but this week’s global chinwag in Hamburg should be refreshingly feisty. No conference with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in attendance could ever be described as boring, and although President Trump’s first meeting with Putin will provide the main photo opportunities, there are plenty of other
Since Jeremy Corbyn’s surprisingly good election defeat, his MPs who previously plotted to get rid of him have been queuing up to pledge their allegiance to the Labour leader. They have been doing this partly because they did make some rather dire predictions about the impossibility of holding their own seats, or indeed of Labour
Dear Sebastian, Thank you for your reply to my letter. Your words are a reality check. I have spent decades closely following economics and politics in various parts of the world and reading a lot of history. You, as you say, are not particularly political. You have pursued your career, played in a rock band
On this week’s episode, we talk about the myth of the British decline, theTwelfth of July parades in Northern Ireland, and the regrettable rise of the man hug. First, Britain seems to be relapsing into another bout of ‘declinism’, writes Professor Robert Tombs in his Spectator cover piece this week. From terror attacks to the Grenfell
In this week’s books podcast, we’re talking about the lumbering hordes of the living dead. Yup: it’s Zombie Apocalypse time, as I sit down with Greg Garrett, author of the erudite and absorbing Living With The Living Dead: The Wisdom of the Zombie Apocalypse. More than just a survival guide, this book considers the literary, cinematic
