Life

High life

Low life

Real life

More from life

Age triumphs at Ascot

As part of the after-dinner entertainment on a cruise ship recently, I encountered a couple of comedians. One claimed he had recently shared a booking with a topless ventriloquist. I bet nobody saw her lips move. What was noticeable in both acts, given the seaborne clientele, was the concentration on jokes about ageing, like the

Dear Mary

Dear Mary: How will I know if he really loves me?

Q. To ask for money in lieu of a wedding present (Dear Mary, 3 August) is ghastly, but an established couple can overcome the issue by having a list at John Lewis and converting presents to vouchers. Thus a toaster can be readily converted to something else, even some groceries from Waitrose. For those offended

Drink

Enjoying South Africa’s secret French connection

One aspect of the old South Africa’s racial policies cannot be faulted. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Huguenot refugees arrived at the Cape. Within a few decades, they had been culturally cleansed, abandoning the French language and becoming decent Afrikaners. If only we had possessed the foresight to do something similar in

Mind your language

Bongo

Alexandra Shulman was on Desert Island Discs this summer and one choice was ‘Bongo Bong’. Its words tell a simple story: ‘Mama was queen of the mambo. / Papa was king of the Congo. / Deep down in the jungle / I start bangin’ my first bongo.’ Such were his talents that: ‘Every monkey’d like

Poems

Love-making in Water

Seals — well, they rhyme with steel — can stand the cold. And they can even dive and mate at once. They hold their breath; and one knows how to fold his vulnerable parts into the other’s. Even virgin seals don’t need experience to do this properly so no one smothers. We need warm waters

The Wiki Man