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The greatest living American until this week has died at the age of 97. I refer to Tom Lehrer, the finest satirist of the 20th century. He’s the one who observed that satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the genius who put the entire periodic table of the elements to the tune of ‘I Am the Very Model of A Modern Major-General’ (Gilbert and Sullivan was his childhood obsession). He was a mathematician who could be as funny about maths and science as about poisoning pigeons in the park (yes he did) or contemporary pieties (‘National Brotherhood Week’). If you haven’t yet

In my corner of Bristol, alongside drug dealers, shoplifters and street drinkers, we now have our very own pyromaniac. They started small – an abandoned office chair, a clothing bank and an old telephone box – before moving on to bigger things. Half a dozen cars have been torched over the past few months, including two on my road, and, most recently, a derelict pub. The other Saturday, hearing a commotion outside, my wife jumped out of bed and flung open the curtains. The scene that greeted us was apocalyptic. In daylight, on a narrow suburban street, the arsonist had set fire to three motorbikes parked in a row, which

A.E. Housman once wrote that the English villages of Clunton and Clunbury, Clungunford and Clun ‘are the quietest places under the sun’. He’s almost right. I grew up in Clunton and the only place I’ve felt a deeper sense of quiet is Escaladei, a village high up in the mountainous Priorat region of Spain, which is home to the Cellers de Scala Dei vineyard. Getting there from Barcelona isn’t for the faint of heart, as the roads weave erratically along the hillsides. Driving there, I gripped the steering wheel tightly and drowned out my fears with music from a local reggaeton station. Once safely at the vineyard, Roger, our guide,

This week Billie Eilish served up a reminder of the irritations of veganism. She forced the O2 to go fully plant-based during her six-night run of shows – and the Daily Mail reported that fans, who’d paid £70+ for a ticket to see her, were not happy about the food on offer at the arena. One said: ‘Punters were less than impressed with the vegan options – a mixture of pizzas, cauliflower bits and loaded fries – with more than one asking “Did they run out of meat or something?”.’ But I expect their real irritation had little to do with the food itself – and everything to do with

Ascot racecourse missed most of the rain that fell this week and, as a result, the ground will now almost certainly be on the fast side of good for tomorrow’s big race, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (4.10 p.m.). Despite a first prize of more than £850,000 for winning connections, just five runners will line up for this prestigious Group 1 contest. Calandagan and Jan Brueghel are vying for favouritism in a re-run of their duel in the Betfred Coronation Stakes at Epsom early last month when the latter prevailed by half a length. However, I see this as very much a four-horse contest with Kalpana and