Four of us go for lunch once a month. My hippy ceramist neighbour, Geoffrey, is a foodie and one of the best cooks I know. He was born a few years after the second world war and, along with his brother, who went on to become a Michelin-starred chef, developed an interest in food from
‘You could mow all this lawn here and it would look a treat,’ said the arborist, returning from a stroll around the grounds, which were looking resplendent in the sunshine. ‘Yes, yes, mow the grass. Good idea,’ I said, for the builder boyfriend has told me I have to agree with the customers. No matter
One of the objections to the military parade in Washington, DC last Saturday – supposedly to mark the 250th birthday of the US Army – is that it was a breach of democratic norms. The real reason it took place, say Donald Trump’s critics, was because he wanted to celebrate his 79th birthday with a
If you can bear to turn away from the Fifa Club World Cup, take a moment to ponder cricket and work out how the Bazball top brass have ended up with a team that lacks a proper no. 3 and has a woefully limited pace attack. And that’s after stating that their sole aim was
Q. I recently attended an opera on a friend’s estate in Kent. It was a multi-generational, non-ticketed, invitation-only event. The setting was idyllic, but as night drew in and my party looked around for some sort of food van, we realised we hadn’t read the small print on the invitation: ‘Bring your own picnic.’ It
The Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station is George Gilbert Scott’s masterpiece: his Albert Memorial in Hyde Park (a big dead prince under a big gold cross) has just too much sex to it. Late Victorian architecture seethes with erotica. The facetious will say imperialism was really just penetration, and there’s something in that.
Sir Keir Starmer said the other day that he wanted to put rocket boosters under AI. It’s not the only thing he wants to put rocket boosters under. In September he said that ‘new planning passports will put rocket boosters under housebuilding’. He wasn’t the only one. When it was his turn to be prime
Hans Island, 80°N 66°W There’s a small island in the north that bears your name—not named after you but after someone with the same name as you, and not even their real name just the forename explorers gave their guide and interpreter, Suersaq, their interpreter and guide— in a moment of good humour perhaps or
Patricia – Pat – was dumpy, with a curling lip, Pat was in fact the Office Bitch. Every night she walked (stridently) home along our beautiful meaningless beach. I sometimes saw her from the car, an umbral figure with an itch for grey skies, pavements and — she told us this — ‘some decent human
An inquest into the Derby in the Oakley household was to be expected. Mrs Oakley, who bets about as often as you will hear Liz Truss say ‘I’m sorry: I got it wrong’, called me at Epsom this year asking for a fiver each way on Lambourn. Since the ten-time Derby winning trainer Aidan O’Brien
