The Rosewall affair signifies everything that is wrong with Royal Mail. The two-and-a-half ton Rosewall sculpture by Dame Barbara Hepworth was acquired by the Ministry of Works and the Post Office in 1963 for a new Post Office Pension Fund building in Chesterfield, where it became a landmark — until last October, when it took
Herbert Smith, a firm of City solicitors, last month announced that it had hired its first ‘inclusivity manager’. There were chortles all round, and the Times ran a short piece about the appointment under the headline ‘Political correctness seems to have broken out at one of London’s top legal firms’. The caravan swiftly moved on,
There is a popular book for new parents called What to Expect the First Year by Arlene Eisenberg. In the chapter on what to expect during the third month there is a list of things your baby should be able to do. One of these is ‘pay attention to a raisin or other very small
Corporate success can generally be measured by the size and strength of the campaign to boycott your business. But until very recently there was a remarkable exception to this rule: Tesco. For a supermarket group which now accounts for a remarkable one in every eight pounds taken by retailers in Britain, opposition has been remarkably
On 12 May I sat down at a café on the square, ordered coffee and Perrier, and began to sketch the west front of Strasbourg Cathedral. This was presumptuous: the complexity of the facade would have baffled the skill even of Muirhead Bone, who taught my father to draw, and who was the greatest architectural
How did an immigrant to England get into the Home Secretary’s office? News that various Nigerian cleaners, working on Home Office premises dealing with immigration, were themselves illegal immigrants was amusing enough. But people are always wandering around Home Office premises whom staff cannot be expected immediately to identify, no matter how hard staff might
Many of my friends were hooked on the latest series of The Apprentice Many of my friends were hooked on the latest series of The Apprentice — even our usually infallible television critic James Delingpole, who told me that he loved it ‘because it’s so awful’. Perhaps I should make more effort to master postmodern
Wandering through the Vale of Taunton recently, I reflected that few places on earth could be more fair in April-time. The trees were still mostly bare but the blossom was out in many places, and the entire countryside bore an air of expectation and awakening in the pale, tentative sunlight. The carpet of arable, pasture
‘You don’t have to be an intellectual to enjoy Beckett.’ A theatre critic, in this centenary year, wrote on Sunday, ‘You don’t have to be an intellectual to enjoy Beckett.’ Many theatregoers must also have thought that, for maximum enjoyment, it helps to be a pseudo-intellectual. Doubtless plenty of the people at present lauding Beckett
‘Nothing puzzles me more than time and space,’ wrote Charles Lamb, ‘and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.’ ‘Nothing puzzles me more than time and space,’ wrote Charles Lamb, ‘and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.’ Well I do; more and more, as becomes someone
It is a curious fact, well attested by history, that a downright ugly man need never despair of attracting women, even pretty ones. The recent uproar over John Prescott and his mistress is a good example. Of course this may have been a case of power acting as an aphrodisiac. Henry Kissinger, a keen student
Suddenly it is starting to look as if the period after 1914 — when London lost its position as the financial capital of the world to New York — was an aberration Suddenly it is starting to look as if the period after 1914 — when London lost its position as the financial capital of
Conventional wisdom in the investment world is that it is hard, if not impossible, to call the really important turns in the stock market. You will struggle to find a professional investor who admits to being any good at market timing, and even more so to find a finance professor who will do anything but
There we were, hopelessly lost in the New York subway. The clock was ticking; we were supposed to meet some friends for lunch and there was no option but to swallow our pride and ask for help. I approached two young women loaded with shopping bags. ‘No idea, mate. We’re from Brighton.’ When we eventually
Are people less honest than they used to be? Most would say, bitterly, yes. But it depends on what happens to you. I once carelessly dropped a £10 note in Uxbridge High Street. An urchin ran after me and triumphantly handed it to me. He seemed delighted to do me a service and adamantly refused
Two weeks ago I mentioned here the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez; I think he is the international Left’s best hope at present: anti-American without being bin Laden. He causes trouble for the United States, but in the old-fashioned Cold War way for a Latin American: delivering two-hour speeches about gringo imperialism to various mobs, attributing
Augustus the Strong, the 18th-century king of Saxony and Poland, is an unlikely but fitting metaphor for a rising China. Fitting because Augustus was as weak as he was strong. A bear of a man, he is said to have fathered 356 children, commanded large standing armies and ruled his dominions with uncompromising resolve. But
Simon Nixon says food companies will make money out of the government’s obsession with obesity – and consumers will pay Sometimes life really does imitate art. It’s less than 10 years since the satirist Chris Morris made his infamous episode of Brass Eye in which he persuaded a host of self-important politicians and celebrities to
‘A financier is a pawnbroker with imagination,’ claimed Arthur Wing Pinero in his 1893 play The Second Mrs Tanqueray. ‘A financier is a pawnbroker with imagination,’ claimed Arthur Wing Pinero in his 1893 play The Second Mrs Tanqueray. His work may be rarely seen in the West End these days, but his words are enjoying
Rupert Steiner talks to Britain’s most admired businessman, BP chief executive Lord Browne, about Middle East conflict and management philosophy Click, click, click, but no amount of clicking brings to life the silver and gold lighter in Lord Browne of Madingley’s hand. The chief executive of BP, Europe’s largest oil company, has run out of