Mark Palmer

World Cup fever has arrived. Every morning on the way to work, more little plastic flags of St George flutter from white vans or, in my case, from the window of our trusty Audi A6. Many of my fellow countrymen regard this footie orgy as wholly unnecessary — not me. Bunting will go up at

My mother always said she wanted to ‘die tidy’. But I never imagined she would file everything away quite so neatly as she did. One drawer in her desk was given over to travel. It included a little Hermès box containing a leather docket given to her by Hotel-Du-Cap-Eden-Roc in Cap d’Antibes after she and

A few weeks ago, I accompanied my daughter to an Open Day at Roehampton College, where she is hoping to start a teacher training course in September. I enjoyed it — and was impressed by the broad mix of motivated young men and women who, if all goes well, will soon be teaching the next

Some years ago (well, nearly ten if you must know), I gave a dinner to mark my undistinguished half-century. Nothing grand — but a convivial gathering of ten men and ten women in the basement of a restaurant where several of us used to hang out in loon pants in the early 1970s. Looking down

‘Where do you stand on Syria?’ asked my stepson. Tricky one. Clearly, the Assad regime is loathsome and the West should exert more pressure to end the bloodbath, but on the other hand I’m not convinced we should be doing anything at all to help the divided rebels, not least because the faction that takes

It’s only 150 years since a toff was roasted in the remote Dordogne village of Hautefaye. The poor soul was a French aristocrat resented by the locals. Perhaps he was an outsider. Perhaps he was a second-homer taking advantage of the delights of the Dordogne without ever turning up to any 19th-century equivalents of today’s

My 22-year-old daughter is feeling a little low. Me, too, actually. I’ve just told her there aren’t enough pennies in the coffers to go skiing this season — just as there weren’t last season. I suggested she should get together a group of friends and do it on the cheap but we all know that

Everyone thinks travel writing is a doddle. You soak up the sun for a couple of weeks and when you get home the words pour forth, dazzling the reader with wish-I-was-there images. Then you sit back and wait for the cheque to drop through the letterbox while planning your next safari or walk in the

Every now and again you read about ‘Empty Nest Syndrome’ — a curious affliction suffered by parents who are sad that their children have left home. It sounds like heaven to me. My wife and I should be, well, free as a bird now that all our little ones have fled to university and beyond.

We like our little cottage in a pretty Wiltshire village on the River Kennet — and we just hope the village likes us. It’s hard to tell. ‘I see you’ve been doing a lot of work on the house. So, have you finally moved in or are you [slight pause, crinkle of nose] weekending?’ asked