My old friend and one-time doubles partner Ray Moore has stepped down as chief executive of the Indian Wells Tennis Tournament for telling the truth. As Rod Liddle wrote in these here pages a couple of weeks ago, ‘There is nothing more damaging to a career than telling an unfortunate truth.’ Ray Moore was a
While I was in Provence, my hostess and I went out one day for a walk in the hills. We walked for three hours and didn’t encounter another soul, and apart from a couple of blue-tits, nor did we see any wildlife. At one point we came to an old stone monastery chapel perched on
After a year of affordable car insurance, I knew I had to be in for it when my premium came up for renewal. Nothing prepared me, however, for the quote that came through from Aviva, who I am thinking of re-naming Amorta, or Adversa, which just sounds more appropriate. You may recall that after I
The Parish Church of St Luke in Sydney Street, Chelsea, is enormous. Vaguely reminiscent of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, it was built in the 1820s to accommodate a congregation of 2,500 people and was one of the earliest Gothic Revival churches in London, with a higher nave than any church in the capital other than
Everybody has their glory memory from Cheltenham this year. Some celebrate the extraordinary seven victories for the quietly confident Willie Mullins, together with such versatile horses as Douvan and Annie Power. Others will forever remember a misty-eyed Nicky Henderson greeting Sprinter Sacre after his Champion Chase victory enabled the most handsome idol in training to
As someone who believes in limited government, I feel conflicted about universal academisation. I’m a fan of the academies policy because it reduces the involvement of politicians and bureaucrats in taxpayer-funded education, but there’s something a little Stalinist about the state forcing all local-authority schools to become academies. It’s using socialist methods to bring about
Well the sun is out, the sky is blue, and poor Boris Johnson is taking such a pounding from Matthew Parris and Petronella Wyatt that it makes the battle of Kursk look like an Easter Parade. Plenty to be cheerful about, then, and nowhere more so than in this blissful sporting spring. First, the T20
Q. Twice recently our host has clinked his glass, required us to stop relaxing and instead take part in a round-table discussion. My wife and are involved in the maelstrom of the Westminster village by day and we have had enough of it by the evening. Is there a courteous way to reject the request
Islington is a bellwether, and also a joke: the most unequal borough in London, where social housing leans against £4 million terraces (for now, loyal Conservative voters, only for now), and also the holy font of Blairism as it appears in ‘It’s Grim Up North London’. Here, it is said, they sang the Blairite version
Benjamin Franklin thought that an excess of electric fluid gave rise to positive electricity, and a deficiency of the fluid to negative electricity. ‘New flannel, if dry and warm, will draw the electric fluid from non-electrics.’ By an electric he meant substances such as glass, and indeed the air. I’m not sure how much we think
