It used to be the taste of shame. Something that could induce nightmare Proustian flashbacks to teenage years of furtive pub trips and buying jumbo supermarket two-litre bottles. Never go back! And yet we all apparently have: this alcoholic madeleine is cider, and it appears that everyone loves it now, unreservedly, without any embarrassment. But
I first bought a flat in Shepherd’s Bush in 1991 and I’ve never missed an opportunity to tell the world just how marvellous it is. The shops, the streets, the people — it really is a showcase for Britain’s multicultural society. You couldn’t ask for a more vibrant and lively neighbourhood. My intention, obviously, has
Was last weekend the most stirringly chock-full and eventful ever in sports broadcasting history? BBC Radio 5 heroically, breathlessly, covered the lot. Television viewers possessing the full works — satellite, terrestrial and all the trimmings — must have been frenziedly fingering their remote dibber like demented teenage girls texting myriad mates on their mobiles. For
I should not have been surprised to discover that The Spectator has a profound influence on village life — a happy state of affairs which was illustrated last Friday evening immediately before the start of our junior fell races. I should not have been surprised to discover that The Spectator has a profound influence on
Depreciation is to cars what compound interest is to us: it bites sooner and deeper than you think. In March 2006 my sister-in-law paid a main dealer £8,000 for a 2002 Renault Laguna Sports Tourer Dynamique, an 1,800cc estate equipped with air-conditioning, sunroof (the UK market is apparently the only one that demands both), alloys,
Former US champion jockey Eddie Arcaro has entered the new Oxford Dictionary of Quotations with his comment, ‘When a jockey retires he becomes just another little man.’ Former US champion jockey Eddie Arcaro has entered the new Oxford Dictionary of Quotations with his comment, ‘When a jockey retires he becomes just another little man.’ Nobody
During this summer of catastrophic floods, a good news story washed up on one or two newspaper sports desks. Ben Kay and Martin Corry, two of England’s most experienced forwards who had been preparing for the Rugby World Cup at the appropriately named city of Bath, drove home through Gloucestershire when they encountered drivers in
The morning after England’s Rugby World Cup triumph over Australia four years ago I walked down my local high street and saw two boys doing something which deeply disturbed me. Knock knock. Who’s there? Jonny. Jonny who? The morning after England’s Rugby World Cup triumph over Australia four years ago I walked down my local
Rugby players come in all shapes and sizes, even if the small ones are now big, strapping and muscle-bound, but when it comes to characters most are only two-dimensional at best. Jonny Wilkinson is the nearest thing the game has to a Beckham-style icon. He is wonderfully talented, admirably dedicated, but also somewhat dull. It
There was, the architect said, no hope of getting planning permission for an extension. So I had the ingenious idea of solving our bedroom shortage by building what amounts to an annexe on the ‘footprint’ of the dilapidated potting shed on the other side of the orchard. The plans which we submitted to the Peak
Rider Mick Fitzgerald was asked by his careers master when still at school what he wanted to be. ‘I’ve half a mind to be a jump-jockey,’ he declared. ‘Good,’ replied the laconic pedagogue, ‘because that’s all you’ll need.’ Fitzgerald is actually one of the brightest men in the saddle, but though the thrills of the
Depending on whether you are a housewife, Lothario or a gardener, ‘bedding’ can mean a number of different things. Depending on whether you are a housewife, Lothario or a gardener, ‘bedding’ can mean a number of different things. As a horticultural term, it dates from the early decades of the 19th century, when adventurous Victorian
It is before 7 a.m. in the office at Lambourn’s Kingsdown Stables It is before 7 a.m. in the office at Lambourn’s Kingsdown Stables. Trainer Jamie Osborne is on his own but brews fresh coffee from a cafetière, served in matching mugs. Jamie, who always had style as well as courage in the saddle, does
Remember, remember the 24th of August. According to the announcement on the noticeboard next to the bus stop, that is the date on which the next firework display will be held at the almost stately home just outside the southern boundary of the village. We shall call the gigantic Victorian pile Speculative Towers, for its
‘I saw Eternity the other night,’ wrote the 17th-century religious poet Henry Vaughan, arrestingly combining the numinous and the mundane. ‘I saw Eternity the other night,’ wrote the 17th-century religious poet Henry Vaughan, arrestingly combining the numinous and the mundane. ‘I drove a Facel Vega the other day’ may not be quite as evocative, but
The late Jim Callaghan told a few of us one day about life in the House of Lords after being an MP in the Commons. ‘In the Commons you wonder if you’ll survive the next election. In the Lords you wonder if you’ll live until Christmas.’ On his first day in the Lords, the Whip
It was, I think, Governor Winthrop, one of the founders of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who said that politicians must think of themselves as a house on a hill. I have never been sure if he meant that they had the advantage of being ‘looked up to’ or the problem of being constantly visible to
I thought it wouldn’t happen. I thought that because the natural world is free, and because gardening is principally about doing, rather than getting and spending, that gardeners would be hard to beguile. But I was wrong. Like the rest of the population, they have taken up shopping as a hobby. I thought it wouldn’t
I spent much of my early boyhood in a disused cemetery — a Gothic beginning to my adolescence which was the result of nothing more romantic than the fact that only a high wall, over which I could climb with the help of an elderberry tree, divided our back garden from the overgrown graves. I
Keeping thin enough to star in your sixties comes hard, and the recently sadly deceased George Melly once inquired of Mick Jagger why the rock supremo’s face was so lined. ‘Laughter lines,’ replied the Rolling Stone. Keeping thin enough to star in your sixties comes hard, and the recently sadly deceased George Melly once inquired