Thirty years have passed since I received the envelope containing my O-level results, but I can still recall the moment my eyes scanned the letter. I got a C in English Literature, a Grade 1 in CSE Drama and failed the rest. I relayed the news to my mother and suggested I embark on a
Life is all about perspective. I used to believe that rugby was invented by William Webb Ellis, the schoolboy who picked up and ran with a football. But only until I heard an ex-England international explain that it wasn’t Webb Ellis at all who deserved the credit but Dalrymple, the guy who ran after him,
One of the advantages of being brought up in large families, supposedly, is that you learn the art of politics at an early age. The idea is that if you’re surrounded by lots of siblings you become skilled at forging alliances, isolating your enemies, and so forth. I didn’t give much credence to this theory
Of all the reasons for making a garden, providing a space for entertaining people probably generates the most anxiety. When we moved to our present house 16 years ago, the relatively large size of garden, and its adjacent Christmas tree plantation, inevitably turned my thoughts to how best to make it a suitable stage for
The summer holidays are upon us and like most people I’ve been taking the opportunity to do a bit of light reading. I’ve put aside the heavy tomes I’ve been wrestling with for the best part of the year and accumulated a vast pile of trashy paperbacks. So far, my favourite ‘beach read’ is The
Thanks to jams on the A3 it took me nearly four hours driving from central London for the last day of Glorious Goodwood. It would have been worth it if it had taken 24. It was the day of the good guys with whom we all enjoy sharing success. Critical Moment, his impressive cruising speed
I don’t know about China, but here it’s the Year of the Jaguar — 75 years since baptism, sales up 42.5 per cent, the launch of the new XJ — and for one of their birthday parties, Jaguar took some hacks to try out the current model range on Germany’s notorious Nürburgring. I don’t know
‘As I write, highly civilised human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.’ So began one of the most famous essays in the English language, George Orwell’s ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’, written almost 70 years ago. It’s a much-loved essay thanks to its lyrical invocation of ‘English civilisation’: red pillar boxes, bad teeth,
It has been described as the most radical overhaul of the school system since the introduction of comprehensives. Ed Balls condemned it as ‘the most profoundly unfair piece of social engineering in this generation’. Yet on Monday night, the 2010 Academies Bill was passed by 317 votes to 225. Clearly, to be condemned so vehemently
In every generation, there are at least two famous gardeners who inspire universal respect, if not necessarily affection, in their contemporaries. From the 1870s they were William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll, in Edwardian times Reginald Farrer and E.A. Bowles, in the post-war period Vita Sackville-West and Graham Stuart Thomas, and, since the 1970s, Christopher Lloyd
They have been racing over this patch of the Sussex Downs since 1802. King Edward VII, who popularised both the panama and the linen suit, called it ‘a garden party with racing tacked on’. For me, it is Ascot without the excess. Goodwood’s stands with their floating canopies don’t look like a concrete imposition on
It’s the summer and that means the festival season is upon us. I say that as if I’m a veteran of the festival circuit when, in fact, the last one I went to was Hood Fayre (sic) in Totnes in 1980. That was the year I took my O-levels and I remember sitting in a
It was too good an invitation to turn down. My friend James had managed to get a reservation at Noma, recently named best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine. True, it’s in Copenhagen, but James offered to use his air miles to get me a ticket if I paid for lunch. ‘You’re on,’ I
Eclipse Day at Sandown Park was nearly a disaster. Feeling for my wallet en route to Waterloo, my heart sank as my hand went into an empty pocket, and then I remembered. Mrs Oakley, by then uncontactable at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, had the night before purloined it to pay for a MarshRuby takeaway
The Range Rover was 40 on 17 June, which is cause for congratulation even if relations with the three I’ve owned were not uniformly harmonious. They were all what are now called Classics and in good condition would be appreciating assets. The first, a 1972 two-door, accompanied me to South Africa where it suffered a
In the last few weeks my life has begun to resemble the plot of a Hollywood B movie. An alpha male has invaded my home, terrorised my children and enslaved my wife. If I raise the slightest objection to anything he does, he kicks me in the balls. It’s not an exaggeration to say that
Last week the BBC website ran a story about some new research casting doubt on the effectiveness of free schools. ‘The Swedish model of free schools, lauded by the Conservatives, has not significantly improved pupils’ academic achievement, a study suggests,’ it began. So what was this study? It purports to be a paper written by
I haven’t yet calculated how much worse off I’ll be as a result of the budget but it’s time to start belt-tightening. My first austerity measure has been to buy a tent. I’ve been invited to speak at a literary festival in Cornwall but the organiser doesn’t consider me important enough to offer me a
Gutsy stayers can thrill with their courage, canny jockeys with well-executed tactical plans. But in any sport there is nothing like the exhilaration of sheer face-whipping, wind-in-the-hair speed. Ask those fans in South Africa who had to sit through the leaden fumbling of the so-called England football team against Slovenia. Not just overhyped, overpaid and
God may have a special preference for beetles but, frankly, aphids (greenfly to you, squire) are more my thing. If that seems a barmy thing for a gardener to say, rest assured I get just as irritated as everyone else by their vigour-sapping, leaf-curling, virus-transmitting presence on my flowers, fruit, vegetables and greenhouse plants. When
