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Monday

Alec Marsh

Let’s slash the school summer holiday

There are three little words that strike horror into the heart of every parent of school-age children. They are the words that cause you to break out in a cold sweat or let out a moan in your sleep in the dead of night – even in the middle of winter. They are ‘school summer holidays’. Hear those three words and you may very well envisage jubilant children spewing from the school gates and then remember the dim, distant sun-kissed summers of your own youth. But mention them within earshot of a parent of appropriately aged offspring and you’ll see the light go out in their eyes. Oh yes, the

Chas Newkey-Burden

The thrill of tracking parcels

Ordering things online can be a lottery. You can’t touch, smell or taste the product you’re buying, so it’s hard to know whether you’ll actually want it when it arrives. But we keep clicking anyway because it’s more convenient than trudging to the shops and things are often cheaper. For me, another reason to order online is the dash of childlike joy it brings to my to life when I click ‘buy’ and instantly set up a future treat. In fact, it’s even better than childhood because now I can have a parcel to open any day I want, not just on birthdays and Christmas. But most of all, I

Mark Mason

Don’t call me ‘Mr’

‘Please call me Mark,’ I’ve always said to the teachers at my son’s school. ‘If you call me “Mr Mason” it makes me feel 85 – and if I call you “Mrs Smith” it makes me feel seven.’ I know their first names, and always use them, in emails, phone calls and in person. A few return the compliment, but most keep it formal. It feels wrong, putting distance between us when we’re having a conversation, often an in-depth and important one, about my only child. The best teachers and staff have taught me fascinating things about how to deal with Barney. I’ve only been a parent once; they’ve encountered

Sunday

Arabella Byrne

English? Middle class? Welcome to the Costa del Boden

It was when I saw two other women wearing the same red-and-white-striped Boden swimming costume as me that I realised what I had become. Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have been seen dead on a beach in Salcombe in a Boden swimming costume. I would have been topless on a riverbank in Provence, smoking a Gitane and reading Duras. These days, I don’t have time to care, and I summon G.K. Chesterton as my guide: ‘Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up.’ I have children, a husband and dogs, and we have come – without really meaning to but by some

Saturday

John Sturgis

Now it’s getting late: on Neil Young, ageing and fatherhood

Neil Young once saved my life. Or at least, that’s how I remember it.  This was at an outdoor show in Finsbury Park in July 1993. I had pushed and squeezed my way almost to the front of a large crowd shortly after being passed something of dubious provenance to smoke. One moment everything was perfect: he was playing that romantic late career hit, ‘Harvest Moon’, the sun was setting, the moon, conveniently, rising, and I was swaying along, rapturous. But then, suddenly – bang… I fainted.  This is the only time in my 45-year gig-going career that this has happened. But I was gone. I was briefly unconscious, then

Friday

Penworthy

Three big priced bets for the summer

This weekend’s racing does not get me excited from a betting point of view so instead I am going to put up three ante-post bets at big odds. These horses should give those who follow my tips an interest, hopefully even a profit, at some of the bigger meetings over the coming month. I can’t resist a big-field handicap on Ascot’s long straight course so the International, run a week tomorrow over seven furlongs, is just my cup of tea. There could be some value about because I rate the favourite, More Thunder, and another fancied runner, Skukuza, as doubtful runners. The most likely winner of this race in my

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Trump’s right, there’s power in positive non-thinking

Though I’m no fan of Donald Trump, time and again I’m delighted by the alternately crazy and sane things he says, and the way he knows the difference; he’s the antithesis of our politicians, who say crazy things they sincerely believe are sane. This week he spoke to the BBC’s Gary O’Donoghue, who asked him about the Pennsylvania assassination attempt. As the BBC reported: When asked if the assassination attempt had changed him, the president conveyed a hint of vulnerability as he said he tries to think about it as little as he can. ‘I don’t like dwelling on it because if I did, it would be, you know, might

Alexander Larman

Captain Britain was an embarrassing superhero

The news that the latest Superman picture has been an enormous hit in the United States, but has been received rather more tepidly here, has been taken in many quarters to mean that there is an anti-American mood at large. Maybe this is dictated by America’s choice of president and administration, which means other countries are no longer as enamoured of that quintessentially all-American superhero. Alternatively, it could of course mean, as this magazine’s critic Deborah Ross has suggested, that the film simply isn’t very good and that we should all stick to the 1978 Christopher Reeve picture instead. Whatever the reason, the USA is Superhero Central, and no other

Wednesday