Features

Libya notebook

The battle had the busy, obsessive yet irrelevant air of a point-to-point. It was a social event, held outdoors, a good place to see and be seen. The jeunesse dorée of the western Libyan town of Zuwara were out in force. People had come from miles around. Rather than tweed suits and barbours they were wearing battlefield fatigues

Paving paradise

The gamekeeper at the Surrey farm where I keep my horses has been banned from his local pub for looking too scruffy. Like the two farm workers in Berkshire who made headlines when they were turfed out of their local a few weeks ago, the gamekeeper has been left in no doubt that his muddy

Queen of the world

A Jubilee for the Commonwealth – and beyond Recently I took a flight to my native Malaysia to celebrate my mum’s 79th birthday. I knew that, since I am currently living in London, a birthday present that screamed BRITAIN was in order — a ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ notepaper set wrapped in tartan and

Rory Sutherland

Divided we stand

Many Native American tribes would consult a shaman before embarking on a hunting expedition. In one tribe, a shaman would take a caribou bone, carve on it images of the kind of prey the tribe were keen to find (buffalo, deer, trailer-park video-poker addicts) and then place it on a fire. At some point the

Old Man of Corfu

‘The woes of painters!’ lamented Edward Lear in a letter to a friend in 1862. Earlier that day, he was pottering around his apartment in Corfu Town, when, glancing out of the window, he spotted a troop of soldiers marching past. One of them, a certain Colonel Bruce, spied Lear and saluted. At which, forgetting

Being Blunt

Emily Blunt is jolly busy. This year, she’s in three movies – Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, with Ewan McGregor; The Five-Year Engagement, with Jason Segel; and the offbeat My Sister’s Sister. Her fans, I tell her, must be really excited. Emily seems unsure: ‘D’you think so?’ she says, wrinkling her nose. ‘It might be

#JustStopIt

‘You know, if becoming an MP has taught me one thing it’s respect, admiration for political opponents,’ tweeted Louise Mensch, the Tory MP for Corby, last week. ‘My Labour colleagues best people ever.’ It’s ironic that she should have vouchsafed these thoughts in a tweet, because it is Twitter that is fast destroying whatever respect

Thirty days to live: An encounter with mortality

Death is a beautiful woman, always by my side. She’ll kiss me one day, I know. She’s a companion who reminds me not to postpone anything — ‘Do it now, do it now, do it now.’ Her voice is not threatening, just constant. It tells me what matters is not how long I live, but

Age of the addict

When future generations look back at the early 21st century, they may well decide that its political turmoil — the collapse of the euro, the spread of Islam, the rise of China — pales into insignificance next to a far more important development: a fundamental change in the relationship between human beings and their social

James Forsyth

Ukip’s new deal

Nigel Farage is relishing the chance to sow discord in Tory ranks Nigel Farage looks round with mild disgust at the antiseptic Westminster restaurant in which we’re meant to be having lunch. The leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party tilts his head back and sniffs the air theatrically, then whispers, ‘Why don’t we just

Ross Clark

The price of gold

On 27 July millions will drown in syrup as Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, delivers his usual platitudes about international togetherness and sport without boundaries. He might, for example, do something close to reciting the mission statement of the IOC’s world conference on Sport for All, held in Beijing last September: ‘to

From Prussia with love

In a baroque palace in Potsdam, on the leafy outskirts of Berlin, those industrious Germans are throwing a spectacular birthday party. The Neues Palais is a flamboyant folly, built by Frederick the Great to celebrate Prussia’s victory in the Seven Years War, and this summer it’s become the forum for a huge exhibition celebrating the

Down with Chelsea

It’s that depressing flower show again, full of forced plants and taking over the television schedules Have you been to the Chelsea Flower Show this year? Did you find it a little bit depressing? I thought so. For me, it’s like New Year’s Eve — every year I feel I should go and have fun,

Travel special – Peak district: Away from the flock

Derbyshire’s landscape is hauntingly beautiful, says Stuart Reid, so long as you can make your peace with the sheep Sheep are ugly, dirty, stupid and cowardly, but by far the nastiest thing about them is that in the countryside they are given precedence over dogs. Take your dog for a romp in the Peak District,

Travel special – Scottish borders: On the edge

It’s odd, but most of the English faces we see in our wee corner of the Scottish Borders are merely ‘stopping’ for a night or two on their way north. What is the point, they wonder, in driving all this way only to settle a hair’s breadth past that gaudy ‘Welcome to Scotland’ sign? If

Greek fire

Just eight years ago, when Athens hosted the Olympic Games, the capital celebrated with an orgy of stadiums, hotels  and other infrastructure purchased by what seemed, at the time, to be the fruits of a long economic boom. Today the Helliniko Olympic complex in Athens stands as a monument to this hubris, a decaying white

Bias, Boris and the Beeb

The Today programme ended, and John Humphrys walked out of the studio yawning and stretching. The phone was ringing in the empty programme office, and he picked it up. A spin-doctor’s foul-mouthed rant about how rotten and biased and stupid the programme had been came pouring out of it. Humphrys asked after a couple of