Life

High life

Strained relationships

Gstaad An article in Vanity Fair about a man I knew for over 40 years has turned me into Orlando Furioso. Oleg Cassini died in 2006 when he was well into his nineties. We met in 1956 on an aeroplane going to Bermuda to play a tennis tournament. Cassini was a good club player and

Low life

Rubbish advice

Cursing myself, I rushed out of the house in my pyjamas. I’d forgotten to put out the brown recycling bin for the fortnightly collection. I lifted the lid on next door’s bin and peeped in. Empty. I must have missed the truck by minutes. Now I was in trouble. Putting the recycling bin out on

Real life

Rural rides

‘Ring us when you get lost and we’ll come and get you,’ was the reaction of the gamekeeper at the farm where I keep my horses when I told him I was going on a trail ride with three female friends. ‘Really,’ I said, ‘just because four women are going off on a riding holiday

More from life

Ladies in demand

Life is all about perspective. I used to believe that rugby was invented by William Webb Ellis, the schoolboy who picked up and ran with a football. But only until I heard an ex-England international explain that it wasn’t Webb Ellis at all who deserved the credit but Dalrymple, the guy who ran after him,

Spectator Sport

Forever England | 21 August 2010

There’s a chant they sing at Anfield to the tune of Yellow Submarine — ‘We all dream of a team of Carraghers…’. And so they should. The doughty old Scouser has emerged as something of a hero. There was his gift of £10,000 to Andy Burnham’s Labour leadership campaign, one of the most startling acts

Dear Mary

Dear Mary | 21 August 2010

Q. The forthcoming Chatsworth attic sale has inspired me to stage a similar, though much smaller event. The problem is opposition from my 85-year-old mother, who resists any kind of change and does not like to see things going out which she imagines could be put to use at some stage in the future. Our

Mind your language

Mind your language | 21 August 2010

I found myself in a fine pickle trying to give my email address on the telephone in Spanish. It was bad enough with W, an uncommon letter in Spanish. They have their own version of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie (or Able, Baker, Charlie for older readers), but I didn’t know it. Whisky for W seemed to