Leaving home is the best way to find out who you are. In my case, it’s a muddle. Welsh dad. Irish mum. English upbringing. And I feel pleasantly detached wherever I go. In England, I’m considered Welsh. In Ireland, I’m considered English. In Wales, I’m considered inadequate because I don’t speak the language, apart from
‘Right, we’re going to book into Pauline’s B&B and give her a four-star rating and that will drop her down from a perfect five,’ I said, in a state of utter lunacy. We were sitting in front of the fire at the end of a rainy West Cork day during which another difficult customer had
If it’s Thursday, it must be Budapest. Vienna of the other week is but a memory – and a rather sketchy one at that thanks to all those Corn ’n’ Oils – now superseded in the hippocampus by our wine-soaked Spectator tour of Budapest and the vineyards of Eger and Tokaj. We had a hoot,
Earlier this week, GB News again found itself at odds with Ofcom. The channel had written to the broadcast regulator asking if, in light of the Supreme Court judgment affirming that the word ‘sex’ in the Equality Act means biological sex, it could now treat the dispute between trans-rights activists and gender-critical feminists as a
A state-school cricket competition announced last week with a final at Lord’s is such a good idea you wonder why it has taken until now for someone to come up with it. Ever since Lord (George) Byron convinced the authorities to allow the first Eton vs Harrow match to be played at Lord’s in 1805,
Q. I had the same Spanish housekeeper for 25 years and was devoted to her, and she to me. She was loyal, reliable, fastidious and an excellent cook. She died three years ago and I mourn her every day. I have often wondered how you would have dealt with the one aspect of our relationship
Town – well-named, it has vitality – is on the ragged part of Drury Lane WC2 near the Majestic Wine Warehouse and Travelodge. Like musical theatre, whose home this district still is, it is so ebullient and desirous of being loved that it is impossible not to love it back, because it seethes with that
‘What larks!’ exclaimed my husband archly, assuming that a connection between personal independence payments and Pip in Great Expectations would be amusing. But it is true that the political wrangle over personal independence payments would have been harder to popularise without the cheery abbreviation. Some of us remember Denis Healey’s promise to ‘squeeze property speculators
i.m. The ‘Discovery’ Tree, c. 609-1853 5 September 1876, Calaveras Big Trees State Park, four miles northeast of Arnold, California – At the Calaveras Grove there stood a tree which the guidebook says took 5 men 25 days to cut down, the work being performed with pump augers. Upon the stump which measures 25 feet
I have always enjoyed Royal Windsor Racecourse, as it styles itself. It may not have quite so many dignitaries popping in from the castle up the road as Royal Ascot does, but it has long been famed for its friendliness and approachability. Jockeys moving from the weighing room to join their mounts under the parade
