Life

High life

Why 2019 has been a wonderful year

I received my Christmas present earlier than usual. It was a message sent via The Spectator from a gentleman who had been a reader since — hold on to your hats — 1947, when he was 18 years of age. He is now 90 and believed me to be 88. I thanked him and said

Low life

A young Rwandan scholar left a profound impression on me

In the Rwandan Genocide Memorial gift shop I bought a handy Kinyarwanda–Kiswahili–English phrase book. The tipping point in the decision to buy it were the phrases ‘This gentleman will pay for everything’, ‘Would you like to dance?’ and ‘What do you call this?’ Our Genocide Memorial museum tour was the sobering prelude to a cycling

Real life

The strange case of the everlasting bonfire

The bonfire burned and burned, choking out black smoke, and when my headache got so bad I could barely see straight, I decided I would have to look into it. I say this at every year’s end: I am so tired of fighting. I sometimes wish I could lose this supernatural gift I have for

Wild life

More from life

Farewell to Australia’s greatest horse

Storm clouds may be rumbling over racing’s future financing in terms of gambling legislation but 2019 offered no shortage of happy memories. The emergence of the once-bumptious Oisin Murphy as a modest, articulate and thoughtful champion jockey. The pulsating battle between two previous winners in this year’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes when

Wine Club

Wine Club 21 December

I write this from Camp Bah Humbug, whither I’ve been banished by my ever-loving. I had merely suggested that it might be time to dispense with a Christmas tree this year and that was it. Off I was sent to the gulag and told that if can’t say anything nice I’m not to say anything

No sacred cows

Christmas with my brother

Ever since I was a child, I’ve associated Christmas with my mentally disabled brother Chris. Technically, he’s my half-brother — I have four half-siblings and a whole one — but to refer to him that way feels a bit mean-spirited, as if I’m trying to put some distance between us. Is ‘mentally disabled’ the right

Sport

Dear Mary

Food

Drink

Christmas without God in the Appalachians

Christmas: without being grand and Proustian, this is a season when time present inevitably takes one back to time past. When we are very young, despite the grown-ups’ best efforts to promote moral uplift, Christmas means presents. I remember being given King Solomon’s Mines when I was nine or ten. No book has ever thrilled

Mind your language

What were the words that defined 2019?

‘Come off it,’ said my husband when I told him that upcycling was the word of the year. His response did not chime with the spirit of the Cambridge Dictionary in naming it: ‘We think that our fans resonated with upcycling not as a word in itself but with the positive idea behind it.’ I

The Wiki Man

Technological progress is as messy as Darwinian evolution

There is a famous chart which shows the time it took for various technologies to be adopted by 50 million people. From its introduction, the telephone took 75 years to reach 50 million users. For radio, it was 38; for television, 13; for the world wide web, merely four. Online services are faster still. Facebook