New York This is a tale of two escape artists in one city. Let’s start with my old friend the Rev. Al Sharpton. I call him an old buddy because about 15 years ago, in a downtown restaurant, a boxer friend asked the strutting Sharpton if he wanted to meet yours truly. The reverend did
In the blue corner, wearing 4oz gloves, is the Ninja. Real name Klynton. The younger of my two grandsons. Also known as Ninge. Aged three. Weighed in at 35lbs. Blue eyes, blond hair. Not yet fluent in the language. Has only one word — juvvy. Nobody knows what juvvy is. Possibly a neologism. The word
‘Can I go and play with Twiggy?’ If dogs could talk, this is what my spaniel Cydney would be saying to me every five minutes. She has made friends with the spaniel in the house up the track and the pair are beginning to show signs of folie à deux. I leave my door open
We all have to adjust to reality, like the lady who entered a Barbados bar having already enjoyed several gin and Dubonnets. On her shoulder was perched a rare parrot and she announced, ‘The first person to guess what this bird is can go to bed with me tonight.’ A voice calls out: ‘A turkey.’
The arrival of spring is not an unmitigated joy. The warmth is nice, of course, as are the fresh leaves on the trees and the general sense of rebirth and renewal after a dismal, soaking winter. And maybe, if you live in London, there is very little to complain about. There are delightful parks and
Before I had children I don’t think I appreciated what anxiety was. I’d been anxious at various points in my life up until that point — when taking exams, for instance — but those occasions paled into insignificance when I experienced the full monty. The occasion was the birth of my son Ludo in 2004. The delivery
For many years, Languedoc-Roussillon was a byword for lousy wine. The region was infamous for producing vast amounts of grim fare which appealed to nobody except the French army who bought the rough local reds by the container-load, for cleaning their rifles with or running their tanks on or something. Today, though, this vast area
The brotherhood of cricket, as we know, transcends race, creed, class and nationality. It can also be a big help when it comes to dealing with the law, as this East–er parable demonstrates. My distinguished Times colleague Phil Webster, besides being a doyen of political writers, is also a ferocious cricketer and a man once
Q. We have just moved into a charming little hamlet in Warwickshire and were delighted to find a bottle of wine and a friendly card to welcome us from the neighbours. I was a little bit dismayed to see that they had introduced themselves in their card as from the ‘Paddock’s’ (sic). Our problem is
In the ‘Chefs’ Last Supper’ in the National Portrait Gallery, Marcus Wareing is throwing a brie at Gordon Ramsay, who plays Jesus. They both have restaurants in the celebrity-chef triangle in Knightsbridge near Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner, which led Ramsay to fantasise about chefs’ fisticuffs at 4 a.m. in the street, as he does; but what was
‘So there are lots of universes besides ours,’ the ancient atomists concluded, in the brief account by Peter Jones (Ancient and modern, 29 March). ‘Dot Wordsworth,’ he added cheerfully, ‘will tell you that should be a multi-universe, not a multiverse.’ The trouble with language is that no one takes any notice of ‘should’. In Latin,
Intimacy these days discomforts. More our style is the park or the pub, or three-minded chess with young Kasparov. A bracket-dash-colon smile implies we have no longings to confess. Always, though, I’ll text a bunch of preset flowers on the eve of her six-month scan. ‘Thank you, dear heart, for remembering.’ Then come the hours
