When I turned 70 in September, I had a panic attack. I was certain that my romantic life was over. I’d finally crossed over from middle-age into old age and had joined that sad tribe of the unshaggable. My time as a fun-loving lothario was at an end. Goodbye hot wild monkey sex – hello
The mole specialist was wearing a pink Chanel-looking suit and pink diamanté shoes. By mole specialist, I don’t mean someone turned up dressed in Chanel to deal with moles on our land. I mean I went to see a top London dermatologist about a mole I was worried about, and when I walked into her
Laikipia, Kenya When I was eight I used to go fishing in the Indian Ocean beyond Vasco da Gama’s pillar with Mohamed. Once we pulled out a fish with a domed forehead and a sailfin – a filusi. In Spanish it’s known as the dorado, referring to its iridescent golden flanks. As we watched the
In 1999, a relatively unknown American chef wrote an essay in the New Yorker uncovering the secrets of restaurants. ‘Don’t Eat Before Reading This’ lifted the lid on both the underworld of professional kitchens and the mentality of chefs. In it, the writer meticulously took down ordering fish on a Monday (old), eating steak well
Mimi, where have you been? It’s been too long! You never ring, you never write, you never text… But what a treat to bump into you at Vintners’ Hall the other week and what a treat, finally, to welcome Averys of Bristol to the Spectator Wine Club. I last worked with Mimi Avery – the
I’m in danger of falling out of love with Donald Trump. I was ecstatic when he beat Kamala Harris, delighted with his flurry of executive orders, particularly the one entitled ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports’, and thrilled by his appointment of Elon Musk as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. But his flip-flopping
Q. I am a self-employed travel specialist, concentrating on holidays in Asia. Friends (and even friends of friends) plague me asking for tips on flights and itineraries. Then they go online and book direct instead of through me. Sometimes I have spent hours putting the holiday together for them. How can I politely say ‘no’
China: what next? Around the time of the millennium, I wrote that during this century, many of the world’s great questions would be answered in Chinese characters and that great fortunes would be made, and lost, in the China trade. That is one prophecy which might hold good. No one ever says that they could
‘If they cancel you,’ said my husband, ‘will I be cancelled too?’ He may well ask. But I’m not sure how I’d tell if I had been cancelled. I don’t make platform appearances, so it is not so easy to deny me a platform. A popular way of doing people down is by means of
When you are sad, and imminently grey, Will you take down my poems and say ‘That bastard took and took and took From me, for the sake of his lousy book’ —And have me, who am truly old and grey Terribly in handcuffs taken away?
Rob Henderson is justly famous for coining the phrase ‘luxury beliefs’. These are opinions which are unshakeably held irrespective of any countervailing evidence, either because the display of such opinions confers status on the holder, or else because adherence to them is an article of faith among some social or professional group in which you
