Years ago my divorce liberated me from many things, not least of which was a wife’s burden of organising the traditional family Christmas. Inevitably, come Boxing Day, I was whey-faced with fatigue and singularly lacking in ‘ho-ho-ho’. Subsequent Christmases have been spent in far-flung places and this year I have just returned from visiting Tamil
Years ago my divorce liberated me from many things, not least of which was a wife’s burden of organising the traditional family Christmas. Years ago my divorce liberated me from many things, not least of which was a wife’s burden of organising the traditional family Christmas. Inevitably, come Boxing Day, I was whey-faced with fatigue
One moment laws against ‘religious hatred’, the next against smoking in cars, now mobile phones. What next? But then, law-making has been expanding ever since the Romans drew up their XII Tables, c. 450 bc, which were themselves originally a mere X until they decided they needed II more. In ad 533, when the Roman
In an interview with The Spectator last September, Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, advanced the following paradoxical political principle: ‘What we have tried to do is make sure people understand that you need experience to bring about change.’ To translate: in order to usher in the new, it helps to be old — or
The medical profession used often to be twitted with the mortality of its own members: for if doctors knew so much, how came it that they died like everyone else? I think a more interesting question is why people who study literature for a living write so badly. After all, death is a fundamental and
Forgotten Army Syndrome Sir: Boris Johnson is to be praised for his intention to honour the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan (‘How, as mayor, I would help our brave troops’, 15–29 December). Unfortunately, I believe he is up against Forgotten Army Syndrome. Burma, during the second world war, was an undeserved victim of this syndrome
