To be honest, I felt relief when Pope Francis died. This had nothing much to do with his regular assertion, in contradiction of Catholic doctrine, that all war is unjust. Or his view that Ukraine should have ‘the courage to raise the white flag’ to stop more futile bloodshed which ironically is (more or less)
By changing the address on my driving licence, I was somehow signed up to something that began charging my credit card £39 a month and was going to carry on charging for ever. It was Barclaycard that spotted it and warned me it was a ‘scam’ in a text alert. Had I really agreed to
Rwanda It had been more than 30 years, yet I recognised the church and its surroundings instantly. Superimposed on the tidy green sward of today, I recalled the rags, shoes and corpses I saw here in May 1994. There are gaps in my memories of Rwanda. But the parts I do recall are explosively vivid,
Iam standing in my kitchen preparing kidneys for devilling. Snipping their white cores away piece by piece until they come free and I’m left with just the wibbly, burgundy kidney, ready for their spiced flour, I pause. There is no denying that even fresh raw kidneys can smell a little… challenging. And for one moment
It has been a punishing couple of weeks, with two Spectator Wine School Masterclasses, a brace of Winemaker Lunches and a cracking Winemaker Dinner with Ch. Pichon Baron in the library of our new venue above Old Queen Street Café, hosted by mighty Christian Seely himself. My old pa, faced with such an onslaught, would
The weekend before last, I came home from walking the dog at about noon to find Caroline asleep in bed. This was surprising for three reasons. She’d been up and about when I left the house. She’s not one for taking naps. And her mother was coming to lunch. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked,
Q. Having previously lived in the country in a field with my nearest neighbour not even visible, I recently moved to a large village. I inherited a nice garden with lots of shrubs and perennials that make me very happy. However, my neighbour, whom I like and have for dinner, also likes my garden plants
We had been discussing Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, the possibility of a nuclear exchange across the Punjab and other trifling matters. It was decided to change the subject. A youngster was planning to write a piece on lunching and suggested I might know something about that. I did not disagree. In the old days, lunching was
During the conclave the BBC headlines kept on calling it ‘secretive’. The effect on my husband each time was much like that of a child kicking the back of his seat on an aeroplane. He was annoyed. I could tell by the way he shouted. Secretive is a pejorative adjective. The ending –ive implies a
When scholars were magicians, They learned to sing And then began to fly, for it was Spring then, And even the intelligent were chockful of passions. So, at night when they were high over the town or wood, They left behind The need to be both diligent and good And surveyed the land below
after Humphrey Spender’s ‘Scout Parade’ Each day has its care, but each care has its day a proverb proclaims from a church billboard as a scout parade files through its archway. Half these young men look solemn, half bored, caught between the effort and the reward of endeavour; the same way today they’d seek out
Ask any estate agent: most potential house buyers arrive with a detailed list of criteria for their new home, only to end up buying a property which meets almost none of them. The same is true of dating – few of us are married to people chosen on the basis of an initial checklist. Henry
