Melanie McDonagh is an Irish journalist working in London.
OK, what did you make of the new series of University Challenge then, with Amol Rajan occupying the seat that Jeremy Paxman once graced? Actually, if it was the same chair, it was a bit big for Amol, and I’m sure there’s a metaphor there somewhere. But really, the whole thing was just fine. Amol
All things considered, probably the least of George Osborne’s concerns on the occasion of his second marriage was being showered with orange confetti by a woman apparently sympathetic to the Just Stop Oil protestors. Bingo: a whole new form of protest came into being. What is the whole confetti thing about anyway? You used to
One of the annoying things about too many contemporary museums is that, having ditched old-fashioned closely typed descriptive labels and display cases, they often seem to be pitched at the level of a 12-year-old. So it’s refreshing to go to a museum that really is for 12-year-olds – or, at least, babies to 14-year-olds. Three
The number of abortions taking place in Ireland is more than 8,000 a year, up from the memorable figure of 6,666 abortions in the first year after the law legalising abortion came into force in January 2019. It’s all rather a far cry from the situation that abortion campaigners talked about during the referendum campaign,
What’s the difference between infanticide and an abortion at eight months’ gestation? This is one of the difficult questions thrown up by the grim case of Carla Foster, the mother who’s been jailed for 28 months (in practice, it’ll be half that) for inducing an abortion outside the legal limit using pills at home. Her
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On this week’s episode: Price caps are back in the news as the government is reportedly considering implementing one on basic food items. What happened to the Rishi Sunak who admired Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson? In her cover article this week, our economics editor Kate Andrews argues that the prime minister and his party
So, which country is putting health warnings and calorie counts on bottles of alcohol for the benefit of its citizens? Nope, not Canada or New Zealand. But you’re getting warm… It’s Ireland, the country that gave us Guinness, Jameson, Bushmills and, for those who like that kind of thing, Baileys. That’s right: a health warning
You have to sink low, very low, to target the Chelsea Flower show for an environmental protest. But the boys and girls of Just Stop Oil are, it seems, up for tormenting even the most blameless and benign element of society: gardeners. One of the show gardens, designed by Paul Hervey-Brookes, was sprayed with orange powder. I’m
Disney’s latest remake of The Little Mermaid, out this week, has, it seems, a message for the royal family. When the prince wants to know the name of the mermaid, played by Halle Bailey, he tries to guess. ‘Diana?’ Nope. ‘Catherine?’ She pulls a face. Cue royal watchers identifying a snub of Kate, the Princess
Normally, when you look at portraits you feel obliged to focus on the sitter. But quite often you’re thinking, ‘Ooh, what a lovely frock.’ Or, ‘Fabulous breeches!’ Here it’s the costumes that take centre stage. The point that this exhibition makes is that costume spoke volumes about society, particularly in the long 18th century, over
It didn’t take long for Danny Kruger to get jumped on for stating the obvious. His observation yesterday that ‘The normative family, the mother and father sticking together for the sake of the children, is the only basis for a safe and functioning society. Marriage is not only about you, it’s a public act to
There’s been an interesting discussion about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s addition to the coronation service, but has anyone actually tried to parse it? It goes as follows: ‘Your Majesty, the Church established by law, whose settlement you will swear to maintain, is committed to the true profession of the Gospel, and, in so doing, will
There was nothing actually wrong with coronation quiche, Buckingham Palace’s suggested dish for a coronation lunch. Spinach, broad beans, cheddar: all fine. The trouble was, it wasn’t coronation chicken. When you’re following an actual classic, it’s impossible not to be overshadowed. And coronation chicken is that marvellous thing, a recipe which feels as though it has
My own relationship with the gambling industry is almost entirely framed by horse-racing. If I’m at a race, I’ll put a couple of quid each way on a horse I like the look of with a bookie. If I’m absent from the event, I’ll go for an Irish trainer and a name I like. My
Dirt, is, as the anthropologist Mary Douglas famously put it, ‘matter out of place’. For her, ‘there is no such thing as absolute dirt’ and ‘no single item is dirty apart from a particular system of classification in which it does not fit’. It is a label for ‘all events which blur, smudge, contradict or
It would take longer than I’ve got to comb through copies of Thank you, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves, to find out the ways in which they’ve been edited, ‘minimally’, to remove offensive language, but I think we can work out which bits may have fallen foul of the thought police. Penguin Random House have informed
When it comes to Easter cake, there are two possibilities. From the home front, there’s simnel cake, which has 11 marzipan balls on the top – one for each of the apostles, apart from bad Judas. Or there’s colomba, the Italian dove-shaped panettone-style cake, with all its symbolic resonances. Not that the colomba actually looks
The insanely irritating advertisements for BBC Sounds – 30 seconds to make the spirits sink – have recently included one exhorting us to watch the new BBC adaptation of Great Expectations – by the man who brought us Peaky Blinders! It’s a real achievement to lose every vestige of humour in Great Expectations Poor Dickens can’t
Those who back assisted dying/euthanasia/assisted suicide – and no doubt Prue Leith on her nationwide tour will be returning to her differences on this one with her MP son, Danny Kruger – have rarely suggested that it might usefully serve as a backdoor return to capital punishment. This, however, seems now to be the case in
We can blame Robbie Burns. That line about my love being like a red, red rose didn’t actually specify Valentine’s Day, but it has meant that 14 February is forever associated with roses at a time of year when they’re not in bloom. Not here anyway, which means that all the red roses around are
