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Wednesday
Why would anyone move to Dubai?
Dubai is the new black: it’s everywhere and apparently for everyone. The steady trickle of first-person tell-alls about starting over in the Emirate has, since the Labour government moved in, built to a tsunami. ‘How I became a Labour school-fee exile in Dubai,’ written by Isabel Oakeshott, partner of Reform’s Richard Tice, was one that scored particularly highly among readers. ‘We moved from Aberdeen to Dubai – it is hugely expensive to have a family here,’ reads another headline. ‘Low tax might sound affordable, but life in the glitziest emirate is anything but cheap.’ James Vince, the cricketer, is another recent high-profile Brit to relocate there. No wonder international estate
Last orders for the great British regular
The regular’s stage is the fetid pub carpet, the creaky floorboards, the cramped smoking area where they can sneak a shot between rounds. Their audience is the jaded, spotty bartender, the unsuspecting family looking for a quiet Sunday lunch, and any poor soul too cowardly or inebriated to walk away. Regulars are the backbone of the British pub trade, but their time has come to an end. Gen Z has rung the bell for last orders. A recent survey found that 43 per cent of 18-to-34-year-olds have given up booze altogether. Thirty-six per cent of that same demographic are using non-alcoholic substitutes to curtail their drinking, and ‘bingeing’ – drinking
In defence of self-publishing
Years ago, newly triumphant from getting my first book published, I went to my parents’ house for a celebration dinner. Having duly toasted their son’s modest literary success, they then revealed that I wasn’t the new author in their social circle. An old university friend of theirs from Holland – we’ll call him Jörg – had just sent them a copy of his new book, ‘a sort of travel memoir, a bit like yours’. This was not a comparison I welcomed. My book was about quitting my job as pot-holes correspondent on the London Evening Standard to freelance in post-Saddam Iraq – not exactly Michael Herr’s Dispatches, granted, but more
Tuesday
Kate Moss refuses to apologise
According to MailOnline, Kate Moss ‘sparked fan concern as she’s spotted looking “fraught” and “on edge” at Paris Fashion Week’. Good. Kate Moss is one of the very rare celebrities who I’m interested in – because she’s one of the very few celebrities who’s interesting – but in recent years she has become a bit ‘basic’, to use the word she once tossed along with ‘bitch’ at the pilot of the EasyJet plane. Police led her away from the plane after she was caught drinking her own booze after being refused airline hooch. (‘She was not aggressive to anyone and was funny really – the crew were acting out of
Do you have Dryrobophobia?
You first start to notice them in that desultory way you become aware of the floating specks across your vision that signify a migraine is on the way. Perhaps you saw a woman in Waitrose wearing a black one and wondered why she was sporting a giant version of the Umbro football manager’s coat from the 1990s. Then someone pointed out the hot pink camo combo on the sidelines at an under-12s rugby tournament and, looking across the pitches, you realised just how ubiquitous they have become. By the time you spot my own hate-favourite – the Dryrobe Advance Abstract, a limited edition now out of stock which looks like
Will TfL kill off another London institution?
Following the closure of Hungarian restaurant the Gay Hussar in 2018 – that Soho institution and virtual museum of Labour party history – it seems Londoners are about to lose another Central European landmark. The Polish restaurant Daquise has finally had time served on it by Transport for London, who wish to redevelop the buildings round South Kensington station, where Daquise has been serving its loyal customers for nearly 80 years. Formerly a wartime canteen for Polish officers, Daquise opened as a restaurant in 1947. Even its name is rather romantic – a portmanteau word put together by the restaurant’s uxorious founder (he was Dakowski, his wife Louise, therefore Daquise).
Monday
Which Saint Patrick are we celebrating?
Time was, you knew where you were with the patron saint of Ireland whose feast is 17 March. He was a Briton and he tells us in his Confessions that, when he was a teenager, he was captured by Irish slave traders and taken to Ireland, where he herded sheep. He turned to God and was told that he would escape; he duly got a passage back home. But in a dream, he heard the Irish calling out to him to come back to Ireland and walk again among them, and he knew his mission was to bring them the gospel. So he had himself consecrated bishop, returned to Ireland
Andrew Tate has no place on Spotify
With more than 250 million subscribers, Spotify is by far the biggest audio streaming platform in the world – and for countless families like mine, it’s the first port of call for music, audiobooks and podcasts for children as well as adults. In common with many apps, it has a children’s version which blocks inappropriate content for younger audiences. But in common with many parents of secondary school-aged kids, I was persuaded to remove this feature so my 11-year-old son could listen to songs by some of his favourite artists, from Oasis to Harry Styles. I had no idea that this would open him up to exposure to a step-by-step
What my Irish passport means to me
I’m now officially Irish – the proud recipient of a shiny red passport. It arrived, with the luck of the Irish, in time for St Patrick’s Day. But as I gaze fondly at the words ‘European Union’ and ‘Ireland’ embossed in gold on the front, I do feel the awkward guilt of the hypocrite. I may have voted Remain just to avoid any upheaval but I’ve never been much of a fan of the EU. And while I’m in the confessional box, I should perhaps mention that I’m not even properly Irish – my mum was English. I’ve seldom visited the green fields of Erin and have never finished a
Why no news is good news
I’m hiding from something I used to love: the news. It’s a common tendency these days – Loyd Grossman noted it in his Spectator diary recently, calling himself a ‘nonewsnik… unable to deal with a daily diet of misery and despair’. I understand the need to escape the depressing effects of war and economic turmoil. That’s part of my own reasoning too. But my main point is slightly different: it’s not so much that the news is depressing, it’s that the news is boring. We’ve been here before. Whatever the issue, we’ve faced the same old problems and run through the same old arguments. For my 50th birthday, a friend
Sunday
How I fell for 78s
I recently made a programme about the British jazz pioneer Arthur Briggs. Yes, I know. Arthur who? The much-missed Jeremy Clarke told me: ‘If only he’d been called Arthur “Big-Boy” Briggs or “Honeydripper” Briggs, maybe things would have turned out differently.’ As it was, his name always suggested a painter-decorator from Edwardian Brixton rather than one of the hottest cornetists on the prewar jazz scene. Briggs was a Caribbean child of empire who, as a teenager, fell in with makers of the new music in New York, then after the first world war helped bring jazz across to Europe. His various adventures – seeing black bodies in the Mersey after
Saturday
Beyond Boswells: Oxford’s new safe space
One can see a city so differently over time. Visiting Oxford recently I noticed fine whisky shops and fashion stores which have always been there but which I barely registered as a student 15 years ago. There are new arrivals: some good, such as the handsome Jericho Cheese Company; others less so, such as the proliferating bubble tea shops catering to the now numerous Chinese, both students and tourists. Covered Market is still there, where we used to indulge at the original Ben’s Cookies. Though I do not remember back then the Thames Valley Police signs now warning of ‘bag dippers’ operating in the area. Oxford is both swisher and
Friday
Bets for the final day of Cheltenham Festival
There have been plenty of upsets in the Grade 1 contests on the first three days of the Cheltenham Festival but supporters of Galopin Des Champs will be hoping that trend comes to an end today when this talented nine-year-old gelding goes for a rare hat-trick of wins in the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup (4 p.m.) The Willie Mullins-trained and Paul Townend-ridden 9-year-old gelding needs to defeat eight rivals in order to land a first prize for connections of £364,000. In truth, he would want the ground to be softer but the chances are that this odd-on shot will still land the spoils. A convincing victory today would mean that
Good riddance to literary fiction
In case you hadn’t noticed, the London Book Fair has been gracing our nation’s capital this week, down in Earl’s Court. There, the publishers, agents and buyers of the literary globe (London is second only to Frankfurt in ‘book fair importance’) have been feverishly buying and selling the rights to hot new titles, hot new authors, maybe the odd lucky midlister, while identifying the trends, writers and genres that conceal the ultra-precious kernel of hotness to come. In today’s market it’s likely that buyers have been looking for visually rich comic books for children – enjoying a resurgence – and anything in a newish genre called ‘romantasy’ (think Fifty Shades
We need a modern Wogan
Nowadays whenever an elderly celebrity dies – consider the death last month of Gene Hackman as a case in point – one of the first things that happens is that a chunky clip of them appearing on a talk show such as Wogan or Parkinson gets shared on social media. Before you know it, you’ve spent three or four minutes listening to them regale television-watchers of the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s with a reflective anecdote or a personal story that reveals something important or even profound about their lives and animating passions or influences. Often there’s even a humorous punchline, too – all the better for the slow, significant build-up
Thursday
Are schools taking in too many international pupils?
Browse the website of the Independent Schools Council (ISC), which represents some 1,400 schools teaching around 500,000 children, and it will tell you there are 26,195 overseas pupils at its UK member schools. They make up 4.7 per cent of the total student population. The cosy percentages belie the truth. For rather like the growing importance of foreign students in keeping our universities financially afloat, so there are swathes of overseas pupils enrolled at public schools providing a similar financial cushion. And that was true even before the Labour government slapped 20 per cent VAT on the entire sector. Concerns were already being raised that the level of foreign students
Tips for Cheltenham day three
If the ground was riding really soft today, I would not be opposing Teahupoo in the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle (4 p.m.) but the going is officially ‘good to soft’ this morning and it will dry further throughout the day. On that terrain, I would rather be on Teahupoo’s stable mate THE WALLPARK who has won four of his last five starts. His most recent outing was when he was fourth to another of today’s runners, Crambo, at Ascot just after Christmas. Since then he has been kept fresh by Irish trainer Gordon Elliott with this Grade 1, worth more than £180,000 to winning connections, in mind. At seven years old,
The Boxing Academy changing young lives
It’s a typical morning at the Boxing Academy in east London. In the reception, men with handheld metal detectors pat down students, confiscating their belongings and mobile phones for the day. A child has emptied out his pockets and is holding a mucky plastic dental retainer. ‘Can he have this?’ one man with a metal detector asks another. With suspicion, it is permitted. The Boxing Academy is an alternative provision secondary school in Hackney, founded in 2007 on the experimental idea that you could better teach difficult children by making boxing a central part of their education. Students take daily boxing classes, wear navy tracksuits and are as disciplined as