Gstaad The sub-primate level of conversation, as prevalent as the snow up here in the Alps, took a turn for the better last week while a select few celebrated Prince Nicolas Romanoff’s 90th birthday. Yes, most people who live up here are illiterate, but they sure know how to count, some even up to ten
I woke in an upstairs room, face down on bare floorboards, my body wedged into a coffin-shaped space between a divan bed (unoccupied) and a chest of drawers — which wasn’t half as uncomfortable as you might imagine. I stood up, checked for phone and wallet, and looked out of the window. Although the sun
André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu is a Dutch violinist, conductor and composer best known for creating the Johann Strauss Orchestra. So says Wikipedia. But I know better. André Rieu is a cunning hypnotist who has lulled my mother into a zombified trance from which I cannot waken her. His televised open-air concerts, which now take
The advent of freezing weather in Northamptonshire is making me worry about my ducks. I have eight of them of four different breeds now sitting on the base of a stone sculpture in the middle of my ornamental pond, some of them with their heads tucked under their wings, as if hiding from the world,
Punting at Kempton Park in winter I have one basic rule. Take a long hard look at anything Nicky Henderson is running before you consider backing anything else. His record at the Thameside track is extraordinary. But those who had taken the odds of 3–10 on his Tetlami in the novice chase on Saturday missed
Driving round Kenya, I’m constantly struck by the sheer number of schools. Every 500 yards there’s a hand-painted sign advertising the virtues of some ‘academy’ or other. The truly remarkable thing is that at least 10 per cent boast of teaching the ‘British curriculum’. The reason this is remarkable isn’t just because there’s no such
Q. I worked on the features desk of a newspaper for many years and had a desk in an office with dozens of colleagues around me every day. Now I freelance from home and do not meet any men — let alone other women. Mary, I do not fancy internet dating but what is your
Like half of London, I gave the new year a surly greeting. It was time to diet. There are two sorts of diets. First, the ones that may work for girls. Breakfast, part of a lettuce leaf. Lunch, the leftovers from breakfast. Supper, some cottage cheese with watercress. Second, boys’ diets, which all concentrate on
I don’t know whether people know what belling the cat means now. In an allusive language like ours, some references sink out of sight. But the old tale is that a council of mice resolved to hang a bell round a cat’s neck, to warn them of its approach. Which of them would have the
To understand the Jimmy Savile affair, you had to be there. By ‘there’ I mean the late 1970s. At the time my school on the Welsh borders had its own very minor provincial sex-pest. I think every school did. Ours was known as ‘the 50p man’. Periodically he would approach a straggler on a cross–country
