It’s nice to be back in London, and Glebe Place is a delight. Mind you, it’s not the mansion I was expecting, just a very nice mews house on a very quiet part of the street away from the King’s Road. The noise of the city gets on my nerves, which means that I’ve lived
In former times I had acquaintances of long standing, or even friends, who never once asked what I did for a job and neither did I ask them. In the new equitable era I seem to be always introduced to people who badly want to know before proceeding. Here’s how it goes. We are introduced.
After the landowner told us to be out in three weeks, then admitted we had three months to move our horses under the terms of our lease, the search began. We set about putting my house on the market and looking for a place with a few acres, but it was soon clear we were
Laikipia He was turned out in a crisp bush ranger’s uniform and handled his assault rifle like a man hardened in the field for years to take on bandits and elephant poachers. ‘Ah Mario, what a pleasure it is to meet you again after all this time,’ I said. His severe military face collapsed into
Alsace is my favourite of all French wine regions. There, I’ve said it. Bordered by the Vosges and the Rhine, it’s achingly pretty with rolling, wooded hills and exquisite medieval villages. The food is sublime (26 Michelin-starred restaurants), the climate benign (second lowest rainfall in all of France) and the wines, well, they’re stunning, from
Even in my shed at the bottom of the garden I can hear the screams coming from the house. Shrieks of pure terror, often sustained for several seconds, followed by desperate cries for help. No, my family’s not being assailed by a serial killer. Spider season is here and Caroline is an arachnophobe. One a
Q. I never lie about my age but I try not to think — or talk — about it. Now an old school friend, who has been living abroad for many years, has just come back to the UK and is planning to move here permanently. Unlike me, she is letting her hair go grey.
In the Levant, the grape has been cultivated for millennia, some of it used for wine. The hills of Lebanon were — and are — especially fertile, as the Jesuits discovered. The Society of Jesus was the SAS of the Counter-Reformation. Its alumni were famous for intellectual ability and physical courage: scholars and martyrs. They
In its coverage of the shuffled cabinet, the BBC added a note: ‘BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) is a term widely used in the UK to describe people of non-white descent, as defined by the Institute of Race Relations.’ The Institute of Race Relations was founded in 1958, but in 1972, by its own
Years of working weekends, cashing in his holidays, dossing in loveless digs beside arterial roads or in vans to pocket his expenses. He’d earned it, kept on how soon he’d be in Lido di Jesolo, a linen suit for evenings; us lot wouldn’t exist. Back three days later, rubbing down skirting boards before
The door is broken! The door is broken. A Polar wind squalls and flings it open. The bloke behind the fish fryer with a rag thrown over his shoulder tells me to leave it; wipe-clean menus skid across the floor. I’m always somewhere like this in winter. Trawlers queued at the Wyre light for
There’s an intriguing conversation on YouTube between Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, and the artist Damien Hirst. It will be easy to find on Google, since these are not names normally found on the same page. Ten minutes in, Hirst makes an engaging observation about the value we attach to art.
