Would you like ‘a framed 16 x 20 inch nude portrait’ of yourself? The picture would be ‘in black and white or tinted blue’ and would be taken ‘in the privacy of your own home (with a chaperone in attendance)’ by a photographer who would bring a ‘portable studio’ with him. One of his nude
Several hundred years ago, the British brought mass death to foreign lands. They crossed the Atlantic, sneezed on the native Americans and watched them die of the common cold. Now the tables have turned. We live in fear of foreigners bringing death to our own land. Tony Blair said on Tuesday that it was ‘inevitable’
Schoolboy Worlanyo leaves his crowded home in the townships of Accra, Ghana, early in the morning, smartly dressed in brown shorts and a bright but frayed yellow shirt. He makes his way down filthy streets, but walks past the run-down exterior of the government school, where a few children forlornly wait for the doors to
Her Majesty’s Government is in a right mid-term mess. The public services don’t work, despite all the extra cash being thrown at them. The public has, according to a poll last weekend, completely lost confidence in the forces of law and order. Illegal immigration continues unchecked. The gap between revenue and expenditure is expanding. Mr
THERE has been a row during the last fortnight about whether the government should ban the English cricket team from travelling to Zimbabwe for next month’s World Cup. But the cricket has obscured the real issue. And that is whether Britain and the world community will intervene to stop Robert Mugabe from torturing, terrorising and
There were four of us on the shortlist: three women in their twenties and me. We sat in a row while a Home Office cheerleader told us what a great life awaited one of us in the press office. The jolly-along lasted for perhaps ten minutes, and not once did the beaver pause in his
There’s something terribly primitive about bombing the hell out of a country simply to get rid of one man (and, perhaps, his small ragbag assortment of grinning, psychopathic sons, obsequious flunkeys and hired assassins). This is what we’re about to do to Iraq, if I’m not mistaken about the utter futility of this business with
For any art lover, the prospect of a new year of exhibitions – of new wonders revealed and old friends revisited – is, of course, immensely exciting. But only the very organised institutions have their exhibition programmes confirmed well in advance, and in these increasingly uncertain times, even the top museums sometimes have to change
At a time when even the Labour party panders to the rich and to the middle classes, it is a pleasure to talk to a genuine socialist. Jack Jones, who will be 90 in March and was one of the most powerful men in Britain when he led the Transport & General Workers’ Union in
Never in the course of parliamentary history has the personal honour of MPs been more widely doubted and discounted than it is today. Last week the Speaker of the House of Commons announced that, from 2004, not just the Register of Members’ Interests but even their expenses claims will be made available to public scrutiny.
If faith can be said to have fashions, then it has been worn loosely for several seasons. The Christian belief that underlies the great religious paintings of the Renaissance is for many people an alien concept: it can appear, to modern eyes, too structured, too certain, too sentimental. At this time of year in particular,
Since last Christmas, John and Edie have been watching their tree, which they keep outside, with the mixture of helplessness and pride familiar to mothers of sons. They first decided to have a tree that was to enjoy a full life, roots and all, in its pot, five years before. ‘I thought it might have
Saddam Hussein’s mountain of documents now awaiting analysis by UN experts has temporarily flummoxed those in hot pursuit. It has thus bought a little more time before a final reckoning is visited upon him. He is playing a weak hand with customary tactical adroitness. But the underlying realities have not changed. Despite seasonal injunctions to
THERE is something eerie, and a little sinister, about the rise of the Campbell-Millars, as Alastair Campbell and his longstanding partner, Fiona Millar, are known in north London. Their rise started in the 1980s when they were young, unknown and ambitious. They ingratiated themselves with Neil and Glenys Kinnock: helping with the shopping and being
In San Francisco in the late 1970s you could cover the entire modern art gallery scene, both commercial galleries and temporary exhibitions in museums or other public institutions, between a leisurely Saturday breakfast in Sausalito on the far side of Golden Gate Bridge – eggs Benedict and coffee perhaps – and a late lunch in
Have a look at the current ten-pound note. ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ten pounds,’ it says. The ‘I’ who is speaking appends her signature. She is someone called Merlyn Lowther. She describes herself as Chief Cashier, and she signs, as the note states, for the Governors and Company
Ten years ago, Bristol council were apparently thinking of demolishing the building which now houses the newly opened British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. This would have been a great pity, for it was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as part of the world’s first purpose-built railway terminus – Bristol Temple Meads (completed 1841). And the
A cowboy name. Heavy on the consonants and crudely clipped, the first three letters doubling as an instrument of discipline, it is as solid and unpretty as the man it refers to. Given recent challenges, a perfect moniker for a captain of the British aviation industry. ‘I’ve been an airline chief executive for over ten
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. For the next 24 hours I’ll be glued to my television set watching the final moments of Celebrity Big Brother. Admittedly, it hasn’t proved quite as compelling as the first series, but it has been pretty entertaining nevertheless.
The 19th annual Parliamentarian of the Year awards, sponsored by The Spectator and by Zurich Financial Services, were presented by Michael Martin, MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, the guest of honour at the awards presentation luncheon held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, London. The guests were welcomed by Sandy Leitch, chief executive of