Who was the second prime minister? Everyone knows Robert Walpole was the first. Firsts get all the fame and glory. But what about the poor seconds, elbowed into the shadows of history? Isn’t it time they were given some love? Step forward, the Earl of Wilmington, PM from 1742 to 1743. Let us celebrate the
‘I’d like a copy of the Times,’ said the visitor from the south. ‘Yesterday’s or today’s?’ the shopkeeper asked. ‘Today’s, of course.’ ‘Come back tomorrow.’ Life on Unst has its idiosyncrasies, but personally, I blame the weather forecasters for giving the nation the impression that the place may not even exist. Their London-centric maps of
Cannock Chase is the long, low range of hills that’s visible to your right as you drive north up the M6 beyond Birmingham. If you’ve travelled by train between Euston and Crewe, you’ve practically brushed its cloak. Soon after Rugeley the landscape closes in, and a palisade of dark pines presses down the slope before
Battersea Power Station once generated nearly a fifth of London’s power. It must have hummed and clanked almost as much as it does today while its transformation proceeds noisily. Graphic prints of it are two a penny across the capital, but I’m fond of them because the power station is my near neighbour. I still
I’ve flown only three kites in my life. My stepfather bought me the first. I remember seeing him from a window approaching our little mews house off Bond Street, clutching it furled in its packet as though his life depended upon it. The previous day he had overcharged an electric plane sent for my birthday
The great grey river stretched into the horizon. The sun was big and low in the sky. The air was very fresh and the clear sky streaked with smears of pink and orange. We had only a little left of the day. From our spot on the Globian Sluice, a steel grating promontory, we could
You know where you are with a British street name. I don’t mean literally. I mean there’s a tacit humility to our islands’ hodonyms: they are short, simple and unpretentious. Not for us the long-winded commemorations of national heroes or local worthies: no Avenue du Révérend Père Corentin Cloarec or Burgemeester Baron van Voerst van
In Britain I never drink cocktails, but on arrival in New York it has become a ritual that my first drink is a Manhattan. Sipping this year’s drink, I realised that my regular two-day forays to the Big Apple have become one long ritual. We stay on Fifth Avenue to allow for a saunter among
Kevin Boorman loves Hastings, and his enthusiasm is infectious. He was born here, he’s lived here all his life and his family have lived here for generations. He shows me a photo of his great-grandfather, who manned the local lifeboat. His parents met on Hastings Pier. Kevin works for the local council, and today he’s
‘Safe as the Bank of England.’ So goes the old phrase. And yes, with walls 8ft thick, the Old Lady is pretty impregnable. Even the keys to her vaults are more than a foot long (the locks also now incorporate voice-activated software). Until 1973 the building was guarded at night by soldiers from the Brigade
Of all the window displays in Amsterdam this spring there was just one that stopped me in my tracks. I had come for tulips, canals, the tremendous Van Gogh and Japan exhibition, but the unexpected highlight of my trip was the sight of a dozen alpacas beaming through the glass of a shop front off
Come to our house in France, say generous friends, come to Italy, come fishing. ‘How wonderful, what shall we bring?’ Nothing, they reply. They are lying, obviously. Bring cash, a thoughtful present for the house — pillowcases, new books — and your biggest smile. You don’t want the hosts rolling their eyes and punching the
A friend of mine who commissions book reviews has added a sub-category to the list of titles coming up: ‘femtrend’, books about the female condition from a feminist perspective. ‘Grit lit is over,’ she says wearily, referring to edgy books about the marginalised. ‘Now publishers can’t get enough of the feminist trend about women who
When my American friends invited us to stay with them in New Jersey, my 13-year-old daughter was thrilled. She’d never been to the States before, and she couldn’t wait to see Manhattan. I had to break the news to her that there were no skyscrapers where we’d be staying. Plainfield, New Jersey, is an easy
About halfway across Lundy, if you’re trudging from the landing bay towards the north lighthouse, there’s a tiny holiday cottage all on its own. It’s a mile and three quarters from the island’s village and very basic inside. There are two bunks in the single bedroom; a dodgy oven in the kitchen that only works
Doubtless Spectator readers based in Caithness will scoff when I say that the old fishing port of Wick (top right corner of the country, close to John O’ Groats) is a bit remote. But for the rest of us, it is. Indeed, its relative isolation is one of the reasons it was chosen to house
‘Saint-Tropez?’ said the French mother of a friend. ‘C’est un peu… “tacky”.’ She was distressed to think of our taking a house there — really, we were nearer Saint Paul de Vence, where they make artists, than San Trop, where they make tanning lotion — and suggested we stay with her in Provence. She promised
A sterix, te amamus! For those not lucky enough to learn their Latin from the dazzling René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo comic books, that means: ‘Asterix, we love you!’ How brilliant the Asterix books are and how very clever in their puns and deep appreciation of Roman history. A new exhibition at the Jewish Museum
‘May I take a picture of your snake?’ I asked the tattooed man with a python around his neck, regretting it as the words left my mouth. He nodded. ‘What’s it called?’ ‘There’s two,’ he replied, gruffly. So there were! Two pythons comfortably coiled, glistening in the sunshine. It was the hottest early May bank
The Premio Rezzori literary prize — held every May in Florence — is named after the Austrian writer Gregor von Rezzori, who lived for years in the small village of Donnini, east of the city, with his aristocratic wife, Beatrice Monte della Corte. Von Rezzori died some years ago but his formidable wife, now 92,
