Major Bruce Shand, father of the Duchess of Cornwall, who died at the weekend, was a man of great charm. He had a very attractive combination of enough confidence to put you at your ease and enough diffidence not to seem arrogant. In old age he had a lovely, interesting, funny face — creased, like
My copy of Schopenhauer’s essays was owned before me also by a doctor, J. Raymond Hinshaw, MD. Hinshaw, a former Rhodes Scholar, was professor of surgery at Rochester, New York, and an expert in the use of lasers in surgery upon which subject he wrote a book. He died in 1993, aged 70, and the
A professional comedian’s desolate vision of hell Since homosexuals were ‘liberated’ in 1967, formed a lobby (some would say the most powerful in the country) and became publicly aggressive and demanding, they have forfeited our sympathy. But it is well to remember the sadness of their lives. Tom Stoppard has drawn attention to newly discovered
Time for a naked protest against global cant and in support of Jeremy Clarkson I was all set to join some of my more liberated neighbours on York’s Naked Bike Ride last Friday, until I discovered that it was yet another protest against ‘global oil dependency’. The debate about climate change, carbon emissions and who
A black-helmeted cyclist half-circles in the middle of the road and wobbles to a halt to greet me in front of the Boden headquarters in North Acton. Johnnie Boden, eponymous founder and chairman of the mail-order-clothes-for-middle-class-families business, is arriving at work. Comparisons with David Cameron inevitably spring to mind. Boden also went to Eton and
Happy birthday, PartyGaming. Or possibly not. A year ago, the City was divided over whether this online poker and casino group’s stock would soar or plummet. Ahead of next weekend’s anniversary of the flotation, the opposing factions can both claim to have been correct. Not even at the height of the dotcom boom did companies
