Life

High life

High life | 26 February 2011

I haven’t got that much time left, but I’d gladly give ten years of my life to see that homicidal maniac Gaddafi strung up from a palm tree alongside his warthog sons, especially Hannibal Gaddafi, an expert in imprisoning and torturing helpless servants and beating up women in posh Western hotels. What a ghastly world

Low life

Low life | 26 February 2011

‘How are you getting on?’ said my landlady. ‘We can see the moor from our place, and every time I’ve looked at it lately it’s been shrouded in fog.’ ‘It has been foggy,’ I admitted. ‘Wet, too. And the pipes froze again.’ ‘Would you like to come wassailing?’ she said. ‘There’s nothing like a wassail

Real life

Real life | 26 February 2011

Another date with a younger man is not ideal. But as I only get asked out by men in their 20s nowadays — something to do with evolution, no doubt — I have decided to go with it. So, to drinks and dinner with a very handsome 26-year-old student. Actually, he is retraining to be

More from life

Status Anxiety: A lesson in satire

You have to take your hat off to Michael Gove. In spite of the Herculean task he has saddled himself with — saving the state education system of this country — he has managed to find time to produce a brilliant piece of satire. I’m referring to a blog on the Local Schools Network entitled

Dear Mary

Dear Mary | 26 February 2011

Q. Our son is at school in England with the son of a billionaire. They have become friends and we would like to invite the child for the week-end. However, our own manor house, while of historic and architectural significance, does not offer the opulence to which our prospective guest might be accustomed. How can

Mind your language

Mind your language | 26 February 2011

Iain Duncan Smith said last week that he was going to ‘lift a million out of poverty’. Lifting is something of which people in poverty run a perennial risk, especially if they are children. It is as though they were a field of root crops. ‘Some potatoes in Lincolnshire are lifting well, others are below

The Wiki Man

The Wiki Man: Fleece the parents

‘Here at Chymorvah we have few rules, but please note that as Christians we have a deep regard for marriage (being the union of one man to one woman for life to the exclusion of all others). ‘Here at Chymorvah we have few rules, but please note that as Christians we have a deep regard