William Moore is features editor of The Spectator
North Korea has a problem with Alan Titchmarsh’s crotch. Last week a 2010 episode of Garden Secrets was aired on state television, but the network blurred Titchmarsh from the waist down. The offence was his gardening trousers – a pair of jeans. For the Workers’ Party of Korea, jeans represent an ‘invasion of capitalistic lifestyles’.
Is the Church of England going to apologise for Christianity? A report by something called the Oversight Group has declared that the Church should say sorry publicly, not just for profiting from the evils of slavery (through investment in the South Sea Company) but for ‘seeking to destroy diverse African traditional religious belief systems’. And
If a general election is held, as is rumoured, in November next year, Labour could return to power exactly 20 years after the Hunting Act was passed, and there is the very real possibility of field sports being finished off altogether. Then, the government’s assault on hunting was a long, bloody, open conflict. Today, the
Lady Rosemary Muir was 23 when she received a letter from the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshal, informing her that she had been chosen as one of the six maids of honour to assist the Mistress of the Robes in the coronation of Elizabeth II. That was in January 1953. From then until the
You know where you are with Christmas. Trees, carols, nativity plays, holly and ivy, presents, mince pies, crackers, Dickens, It’s a Wonderful Life. Easter is the more important festival in religious terms, but it can’t compete with Christmas for sheer cultural and commercial dominance. In contrast to jolly Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny is aloof
The University of St Andrews has been keen on American imports for some time. Americans make up 16 per cent of undergraduates, by far a larger proportion than any other British higher education institution. The university, hungry for foreign money (international students pay £25,100 a year, compared to £9,250 a year for English, Welsh and Northern
‘Bishops are a part of English culture,’ T.S. Eliot wrote in 1948, ‘and horses and dogs are a part of English religion.’ It was a joke. Is it still? Today the fervour for animal lives is so strong that at times it can certainly feel religious. Politicians like to tell us that we are a
In the small Cumbrian village of Gosforth, in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church, there is a sandstone cross which has stood there since the 10th century. It’s tall, nearly 15 feet, which immediately distinguishes it from any other sculpted stone cross you might find in churchyards across Britain. Up close, it’s even more unusual.
The latest fight between the EU and the UK isn’t over vaccines, but molluscs. Brussels won’t grant Britain a special export health licence for the trade of ‘live bivalve molluscs’ unless they are purified first. The problem is, once they’ve been purified they have to be eaten within 48 hours, which gives them too short
I was on a train from Sussex to London, my first since lockdown, when I realised I like my commute. The thought worried me a little. What kind of weirdo have I become? A commute is a psychological hurdle, something to be endured, not enjoyed. What’s next? The giddy thrill of waiting in a queue?
It’s not known which inspired Victorian first had the idea to take a chopping block and carve it into a circular ‘bread-platter’, as they were called, with a raised centre and decorated rim; but William Gibbs Rogers was the one to turn it into a craze. In the mid-19th century Rogers was considered one of
