Nestled under the Acropolis, snug and safe among the ancient ruins of a long-ago grandeur, Plaka is the only remaining protected area of Athens. Greedy developers are as welcome there as a certain Minnesota dentist would be at an Aspinall Foundation animal sanctuary, but that doesn’t stop them from trying. I see signs on old
On Saturday my boy had a mini-stroke at home, aged only 26. ‘You’ll have to give up smoking and do a spot of exercising now and again,’ I told him as the ambulance drove away. Smoking is his solace and consolation. ‘Out of the question,’ he said. On Sunday morning I went to church. ‘Your
The vet bill has been sitting on my desk for three weeks. All vet bills are cruel and unusual but this one is even more so than most. It only came about because the owner of the yard where I had the horses until recently kept telling me they were lame. They didn’t look lame
Watching a group of unruly children make mincemeat out of a well-meaning teacher has become a television staple and Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School, a factual entertainment series that debuted on BBC2 on Tuesday, is a case in point. We look on aghast as five teachers from China struggle to manage a class
Most people, when asked if they would rather be deaf or blind, say they would rather be deaf. I would say that, too. Deafness is obviously a wretched and isolating condition, but it appears to be less absolute in its effects than blindness. A blind person simply can’t see anything. With the deaf it is
Reviewing a biography of Arkle, Peter O’Sullevan wrote, ‘He had an obit to die for.’ So did The Voice himself. It could have been a sad Goodwood with the death of the greatest racing journalist and the retirement of champion jockey Richard Hughes, the stylish equine burglar who stole so many last-gasp victories on the
Jumping the shark isn’t yet an Olympic sport, but if it were the International Olympic Committee would be a shoo-in for gold. And silver and bronze too. Amid some low-key hoopla last week, the IOC awarded the 2022 Winter Games to Beijing. Yes, that’s the same Beijing that staged the 2008 Olympics and in a
Q. While renting in Rock last week, I ran into an acquaintance who invited me to join her large house party for supper the next night. Looking back, the group of ten or so did seem oddly surprised to see me when I arrived. Then, during the pudding course, I looked discreetly down at an
Selfridges is skilled at making things that are not hideous (women) look hideous (women dressed as Bungle from Rainbow or a tree, after shopping at Selfridges). So I was not surprised to discover that it has summoned a ‘pop-up’ restaurant to its roof. It is called Vintage Salt and it is based on a Cornish
‘That’s unnecessarily crude,’ said my husband, turning momentarily from the television and improving the shining minute by setting the whisky glass chinking. (He takes ice in it.) ‘What? A “big ask”? That’s not crude,’ I replied. ‘Oh, ask,’ he said in a sort of liquid-hoarse whisky-throaty voice seldom remarked upon by phoneticians. He was watching
when you weren’t anyone. Days gone undercover. Days half-dead in half-light, days under the covers. Days hoping for a dawn that wouldn’t come, days nights and the sun a dull, faded thing seen through nights of curtains drawn through days of nothing but you, you being the last thing you’d want to think about, you
