Gstaad Dinner parties are no longer verboten here, so I posed a question to some youngsters my son had over: did any of them feel morally entitled to their privilege? The problem with talking about privilege is that the discussion goes around in circles, original thoughts get lost, and what emerges says more about those
‘Sorry I’m late,’ I said to the big unit stationed behind her computer. She’s the chief, this one. She shows no fear or favour. ‘It’s not grave. Room two,’ she said without looking up. ‘Today’s my last one,’ I said. ‘I know,’ she said. Room two comprises three cubicles. Two were already occupied. I was
After launching an investigation into my missing phone, Vodafone informed me it could not deal with me any further until I went through a series of checks to prove that I was who I said I was. I then became locked in an Orwellian battle with an automated system that sent email after email demanding,
Well I don’t know about you but I’m just that little bit overexcited. In a couple of days I’ll be free of this ridiculous, self-imposed, puritanical water wagon regime and I’ve the wheelie suitcase dusted off and ready in anticipation. Roll on Wine Time Friday! If Boris leaves us nothing else to remember him by
I did a speed awareness course on Monday. For the uninitiated, you have the option of doing one of these if you’re caught speeding and want to avoid getting three points on your licence. It only lasts two and a half hours and there’s no test at the end, so it’s a no-brainer, although you
As we digest another Ashes thrashing for England’s cricketers in Australia, and wonder whether the 1966 World Cup victory will forever be the solitary success for one of Britain’s national football teams, the triumphs of individual Brits continue to astound. In the past year GB punched well above its weight in finishing fourth in the
Q. I treat myself to a manicure every ten days. It’s a 30-minute appointment and the girl I use is always fully booked. I turned up — punctual as always — for my appointment this week to be told that the client before me had been stuck in traffic and so my manicurist was ‘running
The Cadogan hotel, Chelsea, is where Oscar Wilde was arrested for sodomy and gross indecency in 1895, in Room 118, which is now memorialised as the site of the arrest. Institutional homophobia is a weird thing to commemorate in fabrics, but everything is a tourist attraction these days. The hotel is a tall red late-Victorian
‘What’s so funny?’ asked my husband, accusingly, as I made an amused noise while relaxing with a copy of the Summa Theologiae. There aren’t all that many jokes in Thomas Aquinas’s survey for beginners in the field of theology. As it’s such a large field, his summary runs to 1,800,000 words. (Incidentally, just as Dan
Like regrets drifting through consciousness, They glide through the streets of our cities, Untouchably themselves, Silently intent on their purpose, Counting eternities with each corner they turn. Belonging to no time or place, They appear in our hearts, Offering up the flowers we never sent And the words we never spoke, Only to disappear once
In the park today, All that I found had a name. The black ball of a robin’s eye, The dizzy dart and dawdle of the sky blue butterfly Were almost just the same, But I had their song In my hands and lips, Like the grass I picked when it had been Rolled and
In its translation, this poem does not rhyme, Nor do its lines possess much of a metre, And yet its lilt has something of the chatter To be heard around the overpriced café Where its translator likes to spend his time Discoursing to the waitress on the way He matches sentiment to syllable To convey
