Welcome, Mr 2014, if you turn out as good as Mr 2013 was, we’ll get along just fine. Throughout last year, I got happier and happier. In fact, it keeps getting better and better and at times I think there must be something very wrong with me. But I should not tempt fate, nor the
I went from the first yoga session of the New Year to the pub. I felt ever so noble. The place was rocking. There was a bloke at the bar looking at his watch, curious as to how long it would take the pill he’d just taken to affect his brain. I was with a
Just the three resolutions for me. I am keeping it simple. Number one: no more boyfriends. The definition of insanity is repeating the same mistake while expecting a different result and I have been repeating this particular mistake for 42 years. The truth is, I cannot do romance. I am elated to finally discover this
This is going to be the year I do my Flash Gordon routine and launch a campaign to save the universe from Ming the Merciless. By which I mean some sort of alliance between the Conservatives and Ukip to prevent Miliband becoming the next prime minister. When I first started thinking about this, my conclusion
The date of this issue of The Spectator is 4 January 2014, which also happens to be my 74th birthday. There is nothing very special about being 74 except that it is the last year in which one can be described as being in one’s ‘early seventies’; for it is the last year in which
Q. I travel internationally two or three times per month for work, often with one or two colleagues. While the working day and the evenings inevitably involve prolonged contact with these colleagues, at breakfast-time I wish for a little ‘alone time’ to eat and read the paper, without company, but also without remaining in my
We agreed that it was the gravest crisis facing mankind. It has led to dashed hopes, widespread grief and a universal loss of confidence in the future. As the scientists seem powerless, the world is thrown back on superstition. If the learned have no answers, one may as well listen to old Jacques, who remembers
If Manchester University is to be believed, last year saw a creeping advance of effete southern language into the gritty north. Roll, for example, is more widely accepted as the name of a little loaf of bread. Certainly I remember 40 years ago asking in a Manchester baker’s for some rolls. The shop assistant genuinely
And then a dozen Muddy miraculous hares Sprang out of the suitcase, Bounding round and round The hotel suite, Drumming for their wild Crochety queen Back home The moon Above King’s Cross.
I enjoy reading reviews of kitchen gadgetry. Clever new kitchen products are often under-appreciated. Many rituals around food preparation are intended to signal personal effort, rather than to produce edible food with a minimum of fuss. There is hence a tendency towards bogus authenticity among amateur cooks which causes them to eschew labour-saving devices in
