It’s best to be upfront about this. Pretty soon, I’m going to use words like ‘downloading’ and ‘uploading’. I’m going to use the word ‘peer’ and I’m not going to mean people like Lord Levy. I mention this, just so you know. Just so you don’t get halfway through and think, ‘the sneaky bastard. This
Lloyd Evans, The Spectator’s theatre critic, reviews last night’s Spectator / Intelligence Squared debate on the future of Iraq which featured Tony Benn, William Shawcross, Sir Christopher Meyer, Ali Allawi, Rory Stewart and Lt Peter Hegseth. Full audio of the debate is available here. The Future of Iraq Speakers and motions Proposition 1 Go. ‘Allied
Since our parish newsletter does not have a wide circulation, I feel I am justified in plagiarising an article in the latest issue by its nature correspondent (my wife). She provides useful, or anyway, interesting information for Christmas decoration, with the preface that unless you wait until Christmas Eve before hanging up your greenery and
Tuesday’s announcement that the Treasury will guarantee lending from other banks to Northern Rock is last ditch bid to avoid having to nationalise the bank. But in truth, most of the best options were closed off by inaction back in September. National Rock? With the announcement this morning of a further extension of the scope
To open a newspaper today is to enter a world of such horror, cruelty, vulgarity and corruption that one cannot imagine why almighty God does not decide, here and now, to put an end to it. But God knows better. There are many fine people around, and beautiful objects, and worthwhile activities, and as the
The last Lord Ribblesdale, who died in 1925, is remembered chiefly as the subject of a remarkable portrait, known as ‘The Ancestor’, by John Singer Sargent. For those who enjoy the byways of social history, this tall, unmistakably aristocratic figure in late-Victorian hunting garb is also remembered for other things: he was a celebrated amateur
There is one thing I have never understood about the property developers of 1930s Atlantic City. How come — at least to judge from the game they inspired, Monopoly — they never borrowed so much as a dime? Few provincial towns these days are considered so inconsequential that they have not spawned a special edition
The old ones are the best, so allow me to remind you of Sibley’s Law. Giving capital to a bank (said that worldly banker, Nicholas Sibley) is like giving a gallon of beer to a drunk. You know what will become of it, but you can’t know which wall he will choose. By now we
The Wangdingdi market on the outskirts of this fast-growing port city in north-east China is an extraordinary sight. It might be the world’s largest bicycle market; it’s certainly the loudest. In the roiling heat of a Chinese summer, touts at the market gather in a liquid throng, moving like mercury, urging — sometimes almost rugby-tackling
Budapest is the only city I know where Gresham’s Law takes pride of place. On the Pest side of the Danube opposite the Iron Bridge, in a niche on the front of what is now the Four Seasons Hotel, stands a statue of the propounder of ‘Bad Money Drives Out Good’. His presence is a
As New Orleans continues its slow slog towards recovery from Hurricane Katrina, the first signs of new life in still-devastated neighbourhoods have often been the markets. It’s fitting that the city that boasts America’s oldest urban bazaar — the newly refurbished French Market in the unflooded French Quarter — should see community markets as a
‘How’s business?’ I asked the Mr Big of commercial property in a city somewhere north of Watford Gap last week. I won’t say which city, because this Mr Big is so big there – his logo is on office block after office block – that he would be instantly identifiable. ‘I’m a buyer for the
