Wales

It amuses me that the two main parties most averse to the idea of honours, monarchy, chivalry etc are led by knights – Labour by Sir Keir Starmer and the Liberal Democrats by Sir Ed Davey. This is entirely fitting, since they accurately reflect the dominant Blob establishment world-view and so were rewarded by being made Sir rather than staying plain Mr Blobby. But I wonder if the title has electoral disadvantages. Some voters must be subliminally more annoyed by Sir Somebody telling them to be radical, make sacrifices, save the planet and not to be racist than they would be by an untitled politician. On the other hand, it

For the recent heatwave, it was my mission to escape our little Wiltshire cottage, where it hit 35°C. It has one of those very poor structural designs unique to Britain that, like plastic conservatories or the Tube, is useless in hot weather. First, we went to stay with friends in Frinton-on-Sea with our English bulldog, who was born in nearby Clacton and is shamelessly happy to be back among his people. Some years ago I lived in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, a living museum of America’s pre-revolutionary settler history. Frinton doesn’t go quite that far – there are no ersatz yeomen milking doleful cows – but to visit is to enter

January. When the assisted dying bill comes in, I’ll be first in the queue. Non-stop nosebleeds, Covid-esque symptoms, leg cramps, a cough resistant to antibiotics, and unremunerated press interviews for my Burton/Taylor book. In the old days I’d be in New York, running amok with publicity handmaidens, going on television and racking up bills in the Gramercy Park Hotel. Now everything is done from the back-bedroom here in Hastings, where I dwell in the slum district, my window overlooking immigrants doing their laundry. Paul Bailey went to the trouble of getting his name removed from my acknowledgements. That’s real hatred February. First anniversary of my myocardial infarction, when I collapsed

Poetic licence Sir: As a Welshman well-used to the prejudice and insults to which our ancient language and its speakers are often subjected, I read Lloyd Evans’s article (‘Language barrier’, 5 October) with some trepidation. Mercifully, my fears were allayed by a generally even-handed summary of some of the thorny issues that inspire debate in much of north-west Wales. I confess that I have never understood why so many Englishmen seem to treat as a personal insult the existence of a language of such noble and ancient pedigree on the shores of the British Isles, or why its continued usage in everyday life should inspire such consternation. I have always

In Europe at the end of the Noughties, the problem drug was krokodil. The semi-synthetic, necrosis-causing alternative to heroin was cheap. My father favoured it so much before his death that he started importing it from eastern Europe into Wales. Across the pond right now, the problem drug is fentanyl, which has made its way into much of the US drug supply. Indeed, it’s become so synonymous with death that many casual users have given up the bag all together (‘I love a line, but I’m not going to die for it,’ one Manhattanite told me recently). More than 75,000 Americans died from synthetic opioids in 2022. And now the

‘There’s a lot of societal issues in Ely,’ said an anonymous caller to BBC Radio Wales the morning after the recent riots in that Cardiff suburb. ‘Motorbikes going up and down constantly. Open drug-dealing going on in broad daylight, that the police are aware of, and nothing gets done about it. Children in Ely – dare I say it? – probably don’t have aspirations. They only see what’s around them. There are young children going to school wearing Rolexes and rolling around on £6,000 e-bikes that their parents haven’t bought for them. So where’s the money coming from? There’s so many things at play that it’s shocking… things will start