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Not long after being diagnosed with cancer, David Bowie reportedly made a secret trip to London to say his farewells. One of his stops was No. 4 Plaistow Grove, a modest terraced house in the heart of suburbia where he grew up, having moved there in 1955. I knew the house well. It was five minutes down the road from our home, which stood in a private lane alongside the golf course, in the village of Sundridge Park. Here, Davy lived with his mum Peggy and dad John. Back in the early sixties, heady rock and rolls days even in Bromley, it was clear that Bowie – or Davy Jones,

Ave Mario looks like Clown Town, a soft-play centre in Finchley with a ball pit so large you could drown in it and lie undiscovered for years. Apart from the crucifixes on the walls, of course, which are specific to Avo Maria. (I have yet to find a soft-play centre that looks like St Peter’s.) We need joy now that Al ‘Boris’ Johnson, our human ball pit masquerading as someone who does not have narcissistic personality disorder, endures to fudge another day with his cabinet of ghouls and his stupid hair. I have always underestimated him as a hack: no more. Now I think he could edit the Daily Mail,

Another day, another diva disrobes. If it’s not Madonna (63) being ‘outraged’ after being banned from Instagram Live (after continually breaking the app’s rules with her nude posts) for ‘digital depictions of her vagina’ it’s Emma Thompson (also 63) getting her kit off for her new film, in which she plays a widow who hires a sex worker. And like a bleak backbeat, we have the sad spectre of Britney Spears, a young woman used as an ATM machine by her immediate family and as fantasy fodder by strangers since she was old enough to wear a school uniform ironically. Her social media since her recent emancipation shows her to

Hollywood can appear self-satisfied and insular at the best of times, but it’s been a rough few months even by Tinseltown standards. Judging by the slew of trailers that have dropped in recent weeks, this season in cinema land will centre on only one thing: biopics. From Madonna and Marilyn Monroe to Elvis (and even Hillary Rodham Clinton) it’s time for a barrage of films in which big stars play bigger stars – in return for your adoration.  Hollywood’s fixation on global fame might not be entirely new – Ben Kingsley’s turn in Gandhi is about to reach its 40th birthday, incidentally – but there’s no getting away from the

Once upon a time, when the fingerprints on the Wimbledon trophy were more or less exclusively British, you could win in SW19 whilst wearing trousers. Even a tie if you go back far enough. But then, back in those days, tennis was a no-sweat sport. Well, perhaps a drop or two, but essentially there was much less of it around than today, when sweatbands, perspiration and frequent towelling off are part of a fetishised display of effort and strain – one that’s often accompanied by verbal ejaculations of sometimes rather alarming severity. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been forced to mute Wimbledon at times because of the

Whether it’s Santa or the Sith Lord Vader, if there’s a patriarch knocking about in your family, he’s sure to appreciate some pampering this Father’s Day. But there’s no need to fuss, since most daddios are at their best if they’re left alone with a drink. So why not earmark a quiet corner for him on the 19th and make sure he has something special to sip on? Here are some suggestions that’ll make his day. Bourbon This month’s removal of a punitive US-UK tariff on American whiskey trade should see a glorious return for this smashing spirit, and there are few finer than the whiskies coming from the Heaven

It was an extraordinary weekend. The various spectacles had something for all tastes: pageantry on Horse Guards; solemnity in St Paul’s; the street party of all street parties on the Mall. And there was also food for thought. What does this tell us about the monarchy, and about Britain? I discussed it with a French friend, abetted by some moderately serious claret. We agreed that France was a monarchy masquerading as a republic; Spain, a republic pretending to be a monarchy. As for Britain, the monarchy is as secure as it has ever been. The evolution of British institutions regularly refutes Our Lord Himself. It is possible to put new

As Britain toasted seven decades of the Queen’s reign outside Buckingham Palace, the Welsh basked in their 1600-year survival. Dafydd Iwan, the republican nationalist folk singer, bellowed Yma O Hyd around the Cardiff City Stadium as Wales took on Ukraine in their World Cup qualifier. A simple title – We’re Still Here – makes you want to weep and, then, fight.  What was once a marginal protest tune, composed at the height of Thatcherism after Wales rejected devolution in 1979, is now an apt anthem for spurring on Welsh footballers. Until recent years they were not a celebrated or well-known species but Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and Joe Allen have changed all

When the University of Cambridge’s vice-chancellor Stephen Toope told the Times that students’ gap year projects abroad can build less resilience than the everyday lives of students from modest backgrounds, he was of course right. In today’s culture, the three months I spent attempting to teach English in southern Malawi in the late Noughties now feel like a dirty secret of over-privilege; something that’s deserving of the same discretion as having a childhood pony or the fact that you spent the Easter holidays in the Alps. Actor Matt Lacey’s three-minute You Tube sketch ‘Gap Yah’, that went viral in 2010, cemented the cliché: the pashmina-clad Orlando braying about chundering his way