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I’ve never been seduced by the circus. As a motif in children’s literature, particularly taken up by Enid Blyton and Disney. In fact, as an animal-loving child, I think I found it cruel; I wanted Nellie the Elephant to pack her bags and say goodbye to the circus, I longed for her to slip her iron chain. In childless adulthood, I forgot all about it. Until I moved back to Oxfordshire and Giffords Circus appeared on the horizon every summer, its posters slapped on every lamppost from Charlbury to Cheltenham. The posters might have pulled in some punters, but for a certain type of middle-class patron, Giffords needed no advertisement.

Over the years, I have spent a pretty penny on therapy. I have also spent a lot of money in Waitrose, of which there is a big branch that I like to call a ‘flagship’, very close to my flat. Of the two, therapy and Waitrose, it is probably Waitrose that has provided the most mental relief and has certainly been better value overall. Items may cost a bit more than they do at other supermarkets, but it’s free to enter the shop and there is no time limit on browsing, peering closely, or fondling the goods. Waitrose is not a shop that rewards a quick in and out, which

Whether it is the anti-immigration riots in the UK, with hundreds of arrests and prosecutions, Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI for breach of contract, or the UN’s International Court of Justice cases about the Israel-Palestine and Ukraine-Russia conflicts, the law is all around us. Teaching children about this invisible but powerful force can improve their understanding of life and society. Of course, this could be done in the formal setting of a classroom or a visit to the local law court, but there are plenty of opportunities in everyday life to impart legal knowledge. I explained that it was probably unlawful to sell lemonade on the street without a trading

As a confirmed critic of modern tattoos, who sounded off in these very pages about the ugly plague of body tats infesting our streets, I might be expected to disapprove of the latest manifestation of the fashion – the habit of many athletes taking part in the Paris Olympics to adorn themselves with the distinctive five interlocking rings of the Games’ logo: what I’m calling the ‘champ stamp’. In fact, the athletes have such beautiful bodies – young, toned and fit – and the rings themselves have such a pleasing symmetry that I can only approve and applaud the discreet addition of the logo to their rippling musculatures. As they

York’s famous Ebor meeting will be here before we know it and trainer William Haggas will be attempting to plunder many of its top races with his talented string. Although his stables are in Newmarket, Haggas is a Yorkshireman and so he particularly enjoys seeing his runners win at the course which lies some 40 miles from his birthplace of Skipton. The race that Haggas targets with relish each year is the Sky Bet Ebor Handicap, which is the richest flat handicap run in Britain and has a prize of £300,000 for the winner. The contest on Saturday 24 August is over a distance of one mile six furlongs and

Visiting San Sebastián last month, I was reminded of the joys and hazards of grazing. The speciality in this chic city, and throughout Spain’s northern Basque region, are pintxos – miniature open sandwiches topped with everything from chorizo and padrón peppers to anchovies and baby eels. Pintxoing, as I’ll call it, becomes almost like a game in San Sebastián’s labyrinthine Old Town, in which the regional delicacies are colourfully displayed in bar-top glass cabinets. The goal is to eat enough pintxos to keep hunger at bay, but not so many that you don’t have room for one more. You’re never starving, but the flipside is that you’re never entirely satisfied,