Up to London to collect my PhD from the London School of Economics. It is Dr Taki from now on, and Jeremy Clarke can eat his heart out. If he’d stay out of pubs and do some research instead, he, too, might one day get a PhD. Like Dr Gaddafi and Dr Taki. Actually, my
I woke in room 272 of the West Ham United Quality Hotel faced with the usual questions. What peculiar instinct had brought me safely back when I couldn’t even remember checking in? Were my phone, wallet and car keys still with me? Had I made an exhibition of myself? Committed a crime? I leapt out
Every time a man tells me he doesn’t want to marry me after all I buy a horse. This is getting very expensive, as you can imagine. Tara Lee appeared weeks after I inquired of a fiancé about the possibility of us having children. I can’t remember whose idea she was now, but she proved
Indonesia In a Jakarta traffic jam it hits me. After decades of frenetic travel, I have learnt less of the world than I might have, had I simply stayed on a farm in Devon. After my family’s land was expropriated in Tanzania in the 1960s, we lived for some years at Hill Farm near the
I find it hard not to feel sorry for the Duke of York. Being asked to denounce one’s friends, however unsavoury, can’t be much fun. It must be particularly galling when the politicians insisting on this act of obeisance were themselves hobnobbing with Hosni Mubarak, Zine-al-Abidine and Colonel Gaddafi until about a week ago. In
Q. Over the last 20 years four of my closest friends have moved abroad. The good thing is that they come to stay with me when they are in London. The bad thing is that invariably, when they are packing up to leave our house for their cheap flights, they find that they have somehow
Spectator Scoff – Spring 2011 View online version | View print version 9th April 2011 It’s been a long cold winter, but here we are at last in the blossom-laden, golden days of spring. There’s plenty of seasonal produce for food and wine lovers to enjoy within our pages, much to excite and inspire, and
‘What,’ asked my husband, with a peculiarly annoying tone of archness in his voice, ‘is the highest kite that can fly?’ ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I replied. ‘What,’ asked my husband, with a peculiarly annoying tone of archness in his voice, ‘is the highest kite that can fly?’ ‘I don’t know what you
About a month ago at a conference I was shown an analysis of customer satisfaction surveys from a large hotel in the United States. What emerged from this study was that a guest’s enjoyment and appreciation of almost every aspect of a hotel is coloured by their initial experience of their visit — specifically how
