Nightmares
‘Nightmares, flashbacks, mood swings. Yes, I know you were in Vietnam, but that was on a package holiday last month.’
The Spectator
Friday
Adam
‘Serpent, Adam. Adam, Serpent. I thought it was about time you two met.’
Laddie
‘You’re not going to school in that skirt, laddie.’
Hooker
‘Oh, go on then — you can beat to death one more hooker, but then it’s off to bed for you, young man.’
Invention
‘You know, there may be a way to move your bizarre invention around without having to carry it.’
Debt 2
Smoking 3
‘You’re forcing me to passive-give-up-smoking.’
Paxman 2
‘Newsnight’s gone terribly downmarket.’
Contract
‘And this is how much money we’ll get if we make a complete mess of the contract.’
The big idea that can win the Tories the next election
In one sense David Cameron is lucky that the Conservatives do not enter 2014 with a lead in the polls. If they did, the Prime Minister would be under pressure for stitching up the Fixed Term Parliaments Act with Nick Clegg, thereby denying himself the chance of doing what all strong governments have done over
The first world war in numbers
Centuries of conflict 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the war which was supposed to end all wars. Has the toll of war since 1918 been lesser or greater than in the century before 1914? 1815-1914 saw the tail end of the Napoleonic Wars (5m deaths), the Zulu Wars (2m) and the US Civil War
Spectator letters: Defending super-heads, and how to drink your yak’s milk
In defence of super-heads Sir: I would like to defend head teachers all over the country from the assertions made in Mary Dejevsky’s article (‘Super-heads will roll’, 7 December). The international Pisa studies — which proved how urgently the English education system needs to improve — show that greater autonomy for head teachers within proper
Portrait of the week | 3 January 2014
Home Six months of talks in Northern Ireland, chaired by Dr Richard Haass, a retired American diplomat, ended without resolving the contentious issues of flag-flying, sectarian parades or a policy on trying crimes committed during the troubles. Bus loads of Romanians and Bulgarians set off for London as restrictions on their right to work in Britain were
Elizabeth Jane Howard 1923 – 2014
The novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard died yesterday at the age of 90. She is most famous for the series of 14 Cazelet novels; the last of which, All Change, was published last autumn. Here is a snippet from Nicola Shulman’s review of the book: ‘If there is anything in publishing to melt the realities of
Thursday
A Charm against Indigestion
Soothe your post-Christmas dinner indigestion with these readers’ charms, dug out from the spell-book that is the 24th December 1954 edition. The usual prize of £5 was offered for a charm against the pains of indigestion after Christmas dinner, in not more than eight lines of English verse: the charm to be pronounced while taking
Wednesday
Video: The Queen’s 2013 Christmas message
Her Maj on top form – and highlighting the benefits of the ‘family’ of the Commonwealth. A reminder that, if Britain does leave the EU, it has a far more strategically-placed global network to fall back on.
Tuesday
The Spectator correctly predicted that Australia would regain the Ashes
Australia have regained the Ashes, much to the dismay of the British side. But did the Spectator’s Australian edition predict this might happen months ago? Here’s Terry Barnes’s piece from August, in which he suggested that Australian cricket does well under a Conservative government, and terrible under a Labor one. So the Australian Test cricket team licks
Monday
Should Gatwick Airport have a second runway?
What’s the future for British airports? Earlier this month, The Spectator hosted a lunchtime discussion sponsored by Gatwick Airport with MPs and policymakers who had come to test its thesis: that expanding London’s second airport is the most sensible way forward, as it would boost competition while causing a fraction of the noise pollution. The
