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The clue is in his appearance. The sandy-haired, blue-eyed, 6ft 2in star Jannik Sinner is the world’s No. 1 tennis champion and has just clinched his – and Italy’s – first win in the world-famous Wimbledon tournament. Sinner, the new hero of tennis after his victory over the previous reigning Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz, may hold an Italian passport, but he doesn’t look or sound like a typical Italian. In fact, Sinner is a member of one of the many ethnic and linguistic minorities who populate the supposedly united countries of the European Union. The 24-year-old was born and brought up in the Alpine province of South Tyrol – known

Homer is much praised, but I find him unreliable. The Mediterranean cove in which we were swimming, for example, was not in the least wine-dark. We were turning around and swimming back, the sights on display at the nudist end of the beach having startled the spluttering elegance of my head-above-water breast-stroke. ‘I wouldn’t mind if it was only young women,’ I said to my wife, as we swam back. Rather than accepting my dispassionate nod toward prevailing cultural aesthetics, she replied she didn’t mind in the slightest, and couldn’t see the harm. An unspoken charge of puritanism hung in the air. ‘It was just a bit too much like

My own episode of Long Lost Family doesn’t involve a hug from Davina McCall or a visit from Nicky Campbell, armed with a box of tissues and the kind of tight smile that tells you that you’re about to cry your eyes out. It begins with an unexpected call from my brother who lives in the United States. Had I got a minute? Perhaps I should sit down… We have a sister living in Matlock in Derbyshire, he said. She was born in August 1976 – making her a year and half my junior – and had come to light through the wonders of a genetic match on the family history website Ancestry.com, which

In the depths of winter last year, an ice cream and wine bar opened in Islington. The Dreamery serves ice creams and sorbets in silver goblets with tiny vintage spoons. On the ceiling is a glowing mural of happy cows and a sun with a face, resembling a child’s finger-painting (the artist is Lucy Stein, daughter of Rick). Outside, neighbours whisper about a recent Dua Lipa spotting. The Dreamery is inspired by the Parisian ice cream and wine bar Folderol, and makes fairly sophisticated flavours such as salted ricotta blueberry and Greek mountain tea. It is TikTok chic – a gamble, after Folderol unwillingly became a viral sensation and ended

The Irish problem has existed for centuries, though the nature of that problem is not always easy to define. It used to be political, though relations between English and Irish people on a personal level have usually been harmonious. There are still political problems, because identity – the question of to whom we owe our loyalty – shapes lives and creates communities. But now there is a different problem, and it’s one-sided. Many English people are suddenly keen to present an ersatz Irishness to the world, as a form of civic virtue, to the point of claiming citizenship. Some claim to feel ‘European’, in a vague way. Others feel that

Strangely, it was the Sunday Telegraph, not the red tops, that in 2002 coined the acronym Wags after staff in a Dubai hotel used it to describe the wives and girlfriends of England football players. Little did they know that the term would have the traction that it still does nearly 25 years later. Of course, when most people summon core Wags to mind, they think of the glorious bitchiness of the football Wags in their 2006 Baden-Baden Euro glory – all fake tan, Ugg boots, hair and sunglasses like Barbies on speed. Sadly, they don’t make them like that anymore. These days, Wags don’t need the papers to pap