Life

High life

High life | 1 January 2011

My son J.T. managed to seriously shorten my life by inviting close to 75 young people to my house for an end-of-the-year party, among whom I found some seriously beautiful girls who were out way past their bedtime. My routine for my children’s bashes is a simple one. I train hard either in judo or

Low life

Low life | 1 January 2011

I weighed myself in India. There were scales in the hotel bathroom and I stepped up out of idle curiosity. I’d lost weight. In the three weeks since I’d met Cow Girl on a dating website, I’d lost three-quarters of a stone. I hadn’t even noticed. I weighed myself in India. There were scales in

Real life

Real life | 1 January 2011

‘Stop leading!’ said the poor man trying to dance with me as I dragged him around the floor. ‘Stop leading!’ said the poor man trying to dance with me as I dragged him around the floor. ‘I can’t help it,’ I said, pushing him under my arm and forcing him to perform a series of

More from life

Status Anxiety: Who’s afraid of Michael Wolff?

In the current issue of GQ, the writer Michael Wolff has rather an amusing piece about his predilection for feuding with his friends. ‘My longest feud was 15 years,’ he writes. ‘At that point, I met my feuding companion on Madison Avenue and we immediately took up where we left off. Feuds are, in a

Dear Mary

Dear Mary: your problems solved

Q. Each year I send out about 130 Christmas cards and get back about 80. This year I received 40. I have no reason to think that I have become less popular. Can you shed any light on this disheartening development, Mary? — J.F., London SW12 A. Many people simply could not afford to send

Mind your language

Mind your language | 1 January 2011

The government is thinking of making restaurants put on the menu the number of calories in dishes. The government is thinking of making restaurants put on the menu the number of calories in dishes. Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, spoke of an ‘obesogenic environment’. I thought he’d made up the word obesogenic. It’s a bastard formation, half-Latin

The Wiki Man

The Wiki Man: A question of trust

One of many reasons I love reading about crime on Wikipedia is the marvellous pieces of unintentional comedy you get at the end of an article in the list of internal links. Beneath the entry for the Hay poisoner Herbert Rowse Armstrong, for instance, comes: Poisoners | People executed by hanging | Executed English people