Bernard Ingham once told a story about a reporter from the Financial Times who went to cover an election in Ingham’s hometown of Hebden Bridge. The reporter went into a café and ordered a cappuccino. ‘Nay lad,’ said the waitress. ‘You’ll have to go to Leeds for that.’ Ingham told that story to illustrate the
Football is a game for gentlemen played by ruffians, and rugby is just the opposite. That’s what I was taught at grammar school, and for 40 years I believed it. Soccer is for oiks, our teachers told us. Posh boys are no good at football. And so football-playing oiks like me were forced to play
Kevin Boorman loves Hastings, and his enthusiasm is infectious. He was born here, he’s lived here all his life and his family have lived here for generations. He shows me a photo of his great-grandfather, who manned the local lifeboat. His parents met on Hastings Pier. Kevin works for the local council, and today he’s
“What good is Nato if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and energy?” tweeted Donald Trump on 11 July. Trump was surely referring to Nord Stream 2, the controversial deal between Russia and Germany, whereby Russia will pump natural gas direct to Germany through a new pipeline across the Baltic Sea. Trump
Austria assumes the Presidency of the Council of the European Union this Sunday, and normally the response among rightminded Britons would be a resounding ‘Who Cares?’ Even before we voted Leave, this rotating six month stint was generally regarded with indifference. Now we’re on our way out, why should we be bothered whose turn it
When I read about the author on the flyleaf of this book, I must admit my heart sank: ‘Tristan has led expeditions in five continents and is the only living person to have both flown solo and sailed singlehanded across the Atlantic.’ Oh no, I thought, not another gung-ho memoir by some posh explorer, chronicling
When my American friends invited us to stay with them in New Jersey, my 13-year-old daughter was thrilled. She’d never been to the States before, and she couldn’t wait to see Manhattan. I had to break the news to her that there were no skyscrapers where we’d be staying. Plainfield, New Jersey, is an easy
Time was, a US President wouldn’t dream of criticising the government of one of its Nato allies in public – but that was a long, long time ago, before the Age of Trump. ‘The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition,’ tweeted President Trump yesterday.
In the end, after all the waiting, the document didn’t look like much — a sheet of A4 paper adorned with a German eagle, and one of those tongue-twisting Germanic compound nouns beneath it: Staatsangehörigkeitsausweis. At last, my Certificate of German Citizenship had arrived. How did I feel? Elated, tearful, overjoyed. It was at this
At first, the Spanish marines are just a distant dot on the horizon. A few minutes later their speedboat is on our starboard side. The marines clamber aboard, disarm the irregulars who’ve seized this Romanian frigate, and secure the helicopter landing pad on the windswept stern. Watching from a safe distance, you’d never know this
The New York Times has taken a drubbing in the British press (not least here on Coffee House) for its downbeat assessment of Brexit Britain. However the full page opinion piece it ran last Thursday, by political researcher David Adler, will be music to the ears of many Brexiteers, both left and right. ‘Centrists are
Barcelona’s Barri Gotic is ablaze with banners. Virtually every balcony in the gothic quarter seems to be adorned with some sort of flag. Some people fly La Senyera, the state-sanctioned flag of Catalonia, but far more fly L’Estelada, the rebel flag of independence. Eight months since Catalans voted for secession from Spain in an unofficial
What’s the German for ‘The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley’? Mezut Özil (Arsenal) and İlkay Gündoğan (Manchester City) are two of the finest footballers in England’s Premier League. They’re both of Turkish descent, so when Turkey’s president Erdoğan came to London on a state visit, a friendly meeting and a photo
For France and Germany, the contrast could scarcely be starker. For three days Emmanuel Macron was wooed and fêted by Donald Trump, treated to marching bands and banquets. Today, Angela Merkel made a brief two-and-a-half hour stop-off at the White House, then flew away again. So does this mean President Macron is Trump’s New Best
Summer has arrived early in Vienna and the city of Strauss and Schubert has never looked lovelier. The parks are full of students, basking in the sunshine. The elegant cafes along the Ringstrasse are full of debonair businessmen and businesswomen, making contacts, doing deals. You could almost be back in the Habsburg Empire a hundred
I’m on a narrowboat in Leiden, nursing a filthy hangover, watching this antique city floating past, when I’m awoken from my daydream by a strange whirring noise above me. The glass roof of the canal boat is rapidly descending, and the jolly Dutchman at the tiller is telling me to mind my head. I end
Obscured by the hubbub of rolling news and the cacophony of Twitter, an important anniversary has passed by virtually unnoticed. The Berlin Wall has now been down for longer than it was up. Berlin’s ‘Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier’ (as the Communists used to call it) stood for 28 years and three months, from August 1961 to
Standing at the end of Britain’s longest pier, on a cold and misty morning, looking out across the Thames Estuary, I wondered, for the umpteenth time: why do people take the piss out of Southend? It’s got no airs and graces. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. Yet out here, surrounded by still grey sky
Who is the most important politician in Germany? Angela Merkel? No, it’s the Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz. Merkel remains a colossus on the world stage, but domestically her power is much diminished. Meanwhile German eyes are on Kurz, the world’s youngest national leader, as he strives to bridge the gulf between centrists and populists –
How did she do it? How has Angela Merkel hung on for a fourth term as German Chancellor after being written off so many times? When she’s sworn in as Bundeskanzlerin today it’ll be nearly thirteen years since she became leader of the Bundesrepublik. She’s been read the last rites so often, yet after almost
