The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer: David Dimbleby is not alone (unfortunately)

Whose tattoos? David Dimbleby, 75, has had a scorpion tattooed on his right shoulder. Some more tattoo-wearers who perhaps ought to know better: —  Lady Steel, 71, wife of former liberal leader David Steel (pink jaguar on left shoulder). — Vanessa Feltz, 51 (photographed with Bob Marley on left arm, although it’s not known to

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 14 November 2013

Home EDF Energy said it would put up prices by 3.9 per cent. BT Sport spent £897 million on the rights to show Champions League football for three years, provoking a 10 per cent fall in BSkyB shares. The rate of inflation fell from 2.7 per cent to 2.2, as measured by the consumer prices index; as measured

The Spectator

Vive la France! Everyone else, led by Obama, is capitulating to Iran

President Obama’s flagship foreign policy of ‘leading from behind’ has had some surprising consequences. Not least among them is that France now appears to be leading the free world. During the current set of negotiations in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 countries, America, Russia, Britain, China and Germany seem eager to declare a breakthrough.

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Spectator writers pick their books of the year

Mark Mason JFK’s Last Hundred Days by Thurston Clarke (Allen Lane, £20) brilliantly captures Kennedy’s entire life through the prism of his final months. Deliberately thrusting his crotch for an official portrait, musing about assassination (he even acts it out in a game of charades, covered in ketchup), folding his monogrammed handkerchiefs to hide the

Monday

The Spectator

Lest We Forget

One remarkable fact of recent years is that even as the veterans of the first world war have died and as those who served in the second world war have headed through their eighties and beyond, the memory of the 20th century’s two most devastating wars has continued to be honoured with thoughtfulness and devotion.

Friday

The Spectator

John Cole: ‘An institution cherished by the viewing public’

The BBC’s former political editor, John Cole, has died aged 85. As their political reporter during the Thatcher era, he covered many major stories concerning her, including the miners’ strike and the Brighton bombing. We have dug up from the archive a review, by John Campbell, of Cole’s memoir, ‘As it seemed to me’, from

Thursday

The Spectator

School 2

‘Don’t even think about going to school in that skirt — you know you’re only allowed to wear it when you go down the pub.’

The Spectator

Dog 3

‘You know, I’m beginning to think the dog doesn’t like being locked up in here while we’re at work all day.’