Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator.
I made my first skateboard at the age of 12 by pulling apart a roller skate and nailing each half to a plank of wood. Less than half an hour later, my mother was taking me to the family GP to have my little toe stitched up. She decided to buy me a proper one
When did it become a tradition to organise expensive birthday treats for your children? I don’t want to sound like a character in Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but when I was a boy the most I could hope for on my birthday was a quick game of football with my dad in Highgate Woods.
Michael Gove received a surprising amount of support from the opposition benches when he unveiled his GCSE reforms in the Commons on Monday. Among those Labour MPs saying they welcomed his proposals were David Blunkett, Barry Sheerman and, most unexpectedly, Diane Abbott, who said that they would particularly benefit working-class and black minority ethnic children.
The first time my wife and I decided to rent a cottage in Cornwall in the summer holidays, the idea was to save money. Not that summer rentals are particularly cheap in Cornwall, but when you’ve got four children the cost of flying anywhere is prohibitive. There’s also the additional cost of renting a car
One of the many things I’m grateful to my father for is inventing the word ‘meritocracy’. He coined it in 1958 to describe a society in which social status is determined by ‘merit’, which he defined as a combination of intelligence and effort. As a member of the Labour party, he thought that such a
I’m writing this from New York where I’m spending a few days visiting elementary schools. It feels odd to be back, particularly in my new role as an ‘educationalist’. The last time I was here I was enjoying 15 minutes of fame as a judge in an American food reality show called Top Chef. I
When are you truly middle-aged? ‘The years 20 to 40 are what you might call the fillet steak of life,’ said Philip Larkin. ‘The rest is very much poorer cuts.’ Some might dispute this and put the turning-point at 45, while others will maintain it’s all about how old you feel rather than your biological
I was in my garden office on Monday afternoon when I heard a loud noise behind me, as if someone had jumped over the back fence. Seconds later, a strange man walked past the window. I emerged gingerly from my office and found myself face to face with a giant. At first glance, he looked
Last week saw the launch of the Bad Grammar Awards, an annual contest in which prizes are handed out for poor English. Actually, ‘prizes’ is probably the wrong word since no one wants to win them. No one, that is, apart from A.A. Gill. He entered himself and submitted a badly written email that he’d
Seeing Julie Burchill sitting at the back of the restaurant near Victoria Station, I feel a surge of affection. Chin up, sunglasses on, lips fixed in a pout, she is presenting her usual defiant face to the world. In the past, I’ve always thought of her as being like a screen goddess from Hollywood’s golden
People often ask how I get away with writing about my wife so often. Doesn’t Caroline mind being cast as the matronly foil to my errant schoolboy? I’d love to say that she perches on my shoulder, chortling with pleasure as she vets every word, but the truth is she never bothers to read any
The highlight of the year I spent as a postgraduate at Harvard was a speech given by Tom Wolfe to the graduating class of 1988. His theme was the decline of Christianity in America and the extraordinary freedom that had given rise to. Until quite recently in American history, he argued, people’s personal behaviour had
For several years now, I’ve been going to Cornwall for a week during the Easter Holidays — usually to Bude in North Cornwall. Bude has the advantage of being working class and unpretentious, so you’re unlikely to bump into any Guardian readers. My children and I can sit on the beach, tucking into our McDonald’s
On a warm summer evening in 1986, the crème-de-la-crème of London’s literary establishment met at Antonia Fraser’s house in Holland Park to discuss how they could bring about the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. Among their number were Harold Pinter, Ian McEwan, John Mortimer, David Hare, Margaret Drabble, Michael Holroyd, Angela Carter and Salman Rushdie, who
According to a new survey commissioned by the BBC, Britain is now divided into seven different social classes. The good news, dear reader, is that you’re almost certainly at the top of the pyramid in the class the BBC calls the ‘social elite’. Members of this group own houses worth, on average, £325,000 and their
On the face of it, Game of Thrones doesn’t look very good. The HBO television series, based on a sequence of fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin, is set in a fictional, medieval kingdom called Westeros where various ambitious men do battle for the Iron Throne. It features dragons, zombies and dwarves, and has a
‘What are you writing?’ I asked my nine-year-old daughter as she sat at the kitchen table doing her homework. ‘A recount,’ she said. ‘What’s a recount?’ She looked at me with utter disdain. ‘Duh! A recount.’ I calmly explained that you could recount an event in a piece of writing, but that didn’t make what
Just before Vicky Pryce was sentenced on Monday, her QC made a plea for clemency on the grounds that the case had already ‘undermined her professional position considerably’. In other words, she’d been punished enough and to send her to prison would be excessive. But had the judge felt sympathy for Pryce on account of
I feel a twinge of pity for Prince Alwaleed bin Talal — and it’s not often you can say that about a billionaire Saudi businessman. According to Forbes, he’s worth $20 billion, making him the 26th richest man in the world. But is he? The prince has disputed this estimate of his net worth, claiming
Not a day passes in which I don’t regret firing Irena. She was my ‘daily’ from 1991 to 2004. I don’t think I could have asked for anyone better qualified. Until she came to work for me she had been a professor of geology at a Russian university, but she lost her job when the