First Fred West, now Lucy Letby. At this rate, it won’t be long before Herefordshire has produced more serial killers than it has miles of dual carriageway. You might assume growing up in one of England’s loveliest counties would make people placid, but then you haven’t spent half your life stuck behind a caravan on
Every time I write about electric cars, there is an explosion of hostile comments online in which readers angrily denounce electric vehicles and the people who drive them. Much of this animus rests on a plausible yet mistaken assumption – that EV owners are all passionate environmentalists, sanctimoniously swanning around in their zero–emission vehicles while
In the late 1980s, a story entered advertising folklore. A group from an ad agency had boarded an evening train from Newcastle to travel home from a client meeting. On boarding, they learned that the buffet was out of action, and they were hungry. Happily, one of them was carrying in his briefcase a wondrous
After 250 years of American independence, a nation home to many of the smartest and most talented people in the world may have to choose as its leader one of two people, each of whom is in many ways worse than His late Majesty George III, the man whose role the entire system was designed
People sometimes ask me why I don’t go into politics. Why on earth would I do that? No, if you want to exercise power and imagination, the only remaining role which appeals is to be some kind of Bond villain. To anyone familiar with modern bureaucracy, there’s something hugely attractive about an organisation where the
Since it’s June, here is your cut-out-and-keep guide to hacking your summer holiday. One possibility. Don’t bother. Unless you have school-age children, why book your main overseas holiday in what is the nicest part of the year at home? As my late father often reminded me: ‘The three worst things about living in Britain are
It happened six years ago on a flight back from the United States. ‘Sir, I’m pleased to say you’ve been upgraded to first class.’ ‘Wonderful! Where would you like me to sit?’ ‘Anywhere you like, you’re the only passenger.’ The anti-car movement is idiotic – a luxury belief shared by deluded metropolitans For the next
To understand the development of technology, you may be better off studying evolutionary biology rather than, say, computer science. A grasp of evolutionary theory, with the facility for reasoning backwards which it brings, is a better model for understanding the haphazard nature of progress than any attempt to explain the world by assuming conscious and
In ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’, Sherlock Holmes mentions ‘the curious incident of the dog in the night-time’. ‘But the dog did nothing in the night-time,’ argues Inspector Gregory. ‘That was the curious incident,’ replies Holmes. You never hear anyone say: ‘We finally stumbled across a charming little petrol station nestling among the trees’ Along
Some things in life acquire an outsize popularity which defies all common sense. The outlandish appeal of such things cannot be explained except by reference to René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire – the idea that there are many things we value not for their intrinsic utility and enjoyment but because we see that other
The psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who died last month aged 90, was perhaps most famous for his dictum that: ‘Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.’ This is often known as the focusing illusion. The theory explains, say, why a recent Lottery winner with bad toothache
I can’t remember the name of the comedian, but he had a wonderful ambition, one which will sadly now never be realised. He wanted to interview Neil Armstrong for an hour on live television without mentioning the moon landings once. I wish he’d succeeded. In fact Armstrong might have leapt at the opportunity to pontificate
Our national malaise arises in part from the poor state of many of Britain’s private services. No, not a misprint. I mean private services. Many on the political right berate public services, implying that were they only to be privatised everything would be sweetness and light. Yet modern technology now makes it all too easy
A small miracle happened in politics recently. Someone had a good idea, and then enacted it really quickly. I popped into my local chemist’s last week and the nice chap behind the counter recommended a few treatments, adding that if I still felt rough in a few days, he could give me some antibiotics. Eh?
The swimmer Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time, with 28 medals, 23 of them gold. He is a former world record holder in the 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly, 200m individual medley, and 400m individual medley. But let’s just analyse his world-record time for the 200m freestyle – an amazing
What’s the difference between a café and a restaurant? It’s not as simple as it seems. Yes, the food at a restaurant will be fancier and more substantial. But there is a social distinction too: a restaurant places you under an obligation; a café does not. When you enter a café you order something out
Back in the late 1960s, a Welsh surgeon was returning home late, fell asleep at the wheel and fatally crashed into a tree. My aunt, a doctor, remarked that 30 years earlier a surgeon of such eminence would have had his own driver, and the accident would not have happened. Probably true. And it reminds
Writing a few weeks ago in The Spectator, Toby Young slightly begrudged his wife’s decision to install a new kitchen in the Acton home they have shared for 15 years. As Toby explained, the original kitchen ‘had been done to quite a high standard in the style known as “Victoriana”, which meant William Morris wallpaper,
As regular readers will know, I am an inveterate fan of cryptic crosswords. At the everyday level, they are the perfect way to kill 20-50 minutes of otherwise boring time. There is a refined elegance to clue-setting: the best are little works of art. Crossword-solving also cultivates the useful talent of looking beneath the clue’s
Before we celebrate the ban on tobacco sales to people below a certain age, we need to consider what habits might take its place. And it might not only be vaping. Approaching the Holland tunnel in New York a few summers ago, I lowered my car window and was hit by the stench of cannabis
