Life

High life

High Life | 15 August 2009

On board S/Y Bushido, off Corfu In a state of pre-orgasmic tension and anticipation, I sail into Nat Rothschild waters off the north-east tip of the island. Just across the narrow channel lies Albania, the land that God forgot for close to 75 years. Greeks are known to dislike Albanians, but young Taki is an

Low life

Low Life | 15 August 2009

The answer to all my problems, I read last week in a fascinating little booklet on fungal infections, is a substance called caprylic acid. Left to run riot, it predicted, the fungus growing in my throat and digestive tract will cause flatulence and itching (which I already have in spades), and eventually psychosis. Caprylic acid,

More from life

The Turf | 15 August 2009

It is the weather men rather than the steaks most of us want to grill slowly over hot embers this non-barbecue summer. But there are consolation days and nowhere better to appreciate them than Newmarket’s July course. The staff are friendly. Nobody looks askance at those who choose not to wear a tie and the

Status Anxiety | 15 August 2009

I have decided not to run as an independent at the next election. As readers of this column may know, I want to set up a grammar school in Acton and my plan was to run on this issue. However, most of my supporters would be people who would otherwise vote Conservative, thereby making it

Dear Mary

Dear Mary | 15 August 2009

Q. I was asked to review a collection of letters and did so, praising to the skies the late author’s wit, integrity and astute judgment of human character. News now reaches me that an old family friend, lampooned in these letters, has taken offence. She saw my ringing endorsement of these letters as a ringing

Mind your language

Mind your language | 15 August 2009

Mr Alan Moore asked my opinion from the Letters column last week on the mother who insisted that swearing meant ‘taking the Name of the Lord in vain’, but using the word f*** was just coarse language. I’m not sure this isn’t a question better directed to Dear Mary, since swearing is as much defined

The Wiki Man

The Wiki Man | 15 August 2009

It isn’t every day you hear the suggestion that British imperialism has ‘done more to alleviate poverty than all the world’s aid programmes in the last century’, and to hear such praise from the lips of an American is rarer still. All the more so when the American in question is an eminent economist called