Spectator Life | The Spectator

Beware the European car finance con

Next time you pull up alongside a shiny new BMW 3 Series, don’t look at the driver with envy. Regard them as pitiful owners of a magnificent failing financial delusion. Around 95 per cent of new UK cars now find owners through fleet or contract purchase schemes. It’s a monetary sedative disguising how we rent a depreciating block of steel for £450 a month, blind to being taken for a colossal global ride. The current mainstream narrative is comforting: cars are expensive because of inflation and supply chain problems – with a few carrots for right-leaning thinkers about eco-levies, union interference and nasty Russians. It’s a neat lie. The reality – according to figures for bodies like Germany’s Center of Automotive Management – is more spectacular.

Jonathan Wells

Why do we want our food to lie to us?

A tube of Pringles sits before me. It’s an odd blue-green colour, has a candy-cane question mark curled across its front and, in all-caps lettering just beneath the logo, the words ‘Santa’s Secret Flavour’. Which sounds frankly unappetising. Yet this is just one of a growing number of mystery-flavoured snacks currently on supermarket shelves: crisps, ice creams and other sweet treats committed to keeping their contents under wraps. What’s going on? When did we start playing Russian roulette with our palates and — more to the point — who’s paying good money for food that could taste of, well, anything? From Gatorade and Chupa Chups to Fanta and SunnyD, several such cryptic products have been rolled out by brands in the past year.

Josh Sims

How bare knuckle fighting took on boxing

Anyone who watches the former IBF featherweight and Commonwealth boxing champion Lee Selby enter the ring for his next big fight, in London in November, may be forgiven for thinking all that being bashed around the head has left him with a touch of amnesia. It will seem as though he’s forgotten his gloves. In fact Selby - who remains as sharp as his jab - is simply partaking in his second career, as a bare knuckle boxer. For those not up with the increasingly esoteric world of sport, the sweet science of bruising, as traditional boxing was once called, is fast being over-shadowed by the sweet science of blood-letting.

20 October 2026

Andy Twelves

Lime Bike jousting is a noble sport

London Fields, East London. Saturday the 17th of October. A slight north-northeastern wind is blowing. The sky is overcast, with a drizzle earlier in the day making the ground slightly softer than usual, but still firm enough to get a good grip. Perfect weather for the joust to make a return, after six hundred painstakingly long years. At long last, the beautiful game is back. Here we are in heaven. Like many things in the last six centuries, the mechanics of the joust have changed. Where men used to ride on warmblooded chargers and destriers, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has had its way and transformed their steeds into equally noble Lime Bikes – the iconic green rental bicycle that plagues London’s pavements and gives transit to its most downwardly mobile residents.

Chas Newkey-Burden

We don’t need five podcasts on the Russell Brand trial

There was some dramatic testimony during the first week of Russell Brand’s trial and we didn’t need to miss a moment of the action because there are five – five – podcasts reporting daily from the courtroom. Brand faces three charges of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault, all of which he denies. On the BBC’s Russell Brand on Trial, Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty gives a breathless daily commentary on the trial, which is expected to last eight weeks. Minnie Stephenson lends an authoritative, let’s-get-down-to-business vibe to Channel 4’s Four The Record: Russell Brand on Trial. Sky News have their own Russell Brand On Trial series, which finds room for details such as the ‘basic’ coffee in the courtroom canteen.

Julie Bindel

End the tyranny of tasting menus

In the late 1980s, when I had rarely seen the inside of a high-end restaurant, I happened upon one local to me at the time, in Finsbury Park. Jacques – a small, exquisite French gaff named after its chef and owner – was nestled between a newsagent and an ironmonger on a grotty bit of Blackstock Road. So very French was Jacques himself that he was once overheard (via a kitchen intercom) using the most offensive of four-letter words to describe the English, when someone had complained about the size of the dishes. The restaurant was known for serving up the then-novel concept of ‘nouvelle cuisine.’ Those dishes were indeed tiny.

19 October 2026

Zoe Strimpel

Britain has forgotten how to eat fish

Old recipe books have a deceptive frankness to them, with their terse introductions, blunt instructions and dependence on store-cupboard staples like onion, flour, butter and milk. Even so, the typical modern cook will soon run into trouble. Unless, of course, he or she knows how to tell apart – and take apart – cuts of meat, isn’t afraid of lard, congealed fat or jelly, and can cope with fish in all its forms. It’s the loss of this latter set of skills, filleting in particular, that has coincided with the shrinking of our seafood horizons, recently published research suggests. Dr Ruth Thurstan, an Exeter academic, scrutinised 1,192 fish and shellfish recipes published in Good Housekeeping magazine over the last century.

Matthew Bowles

Nights out are dying out

Nobody likes being asked for their ID once they are over the age of 25, unless they flatter themselves that it’s because they genuinely look younger than they are. For many years, unless going abroad, I’ve simply stopped carrying ID. I’m over the age of 18, don’t carry a wallet and frequent the same pubs in Westminster sufficiently regularly that the prospect of being turned away for failing to produce a driving licence has rarely seemed worth worrying about. Perhaps the next generation has decided that a night out is simply too expensive But there are always some overzealous watchmen. A few weeks back, I found myself in Northallerton at a bar named The Potting Shed, where a bouncer seemed determined to establish whether I was legally entitled to drink.

Alexander Larman

Long live the Prince Charles Cinema!

Sometimes, unexpectedly good news comes from nowhere. So it has proved with the happy tidings that the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square has been saved. After a long and uncertain 21-month period in which it looked as if the cinema’s lease might be prematurely curtailed or simply ended altogether, the company has signed a new 25-year lease, sans break clause, with Zedwell PSQ Ltd, the building’s owner. This brings to a welcome end the uncertainty that began in January 2025, when the lease, which was due to expire last September, looked as if it might not be renewed on its present terms. The landlords attempted to introduce a six-month break clause that could be exercised at any time.

18 October 2026

Anonymous

The Architect

Damien is an architect. Architecture is the second oldest profession, with notable affinities to the first. This morning, he has been on his houseboat, a retired Dutch barge moored in Wandsworth, finishing the text of his important new book Parametric Praxis: tectonics at the end of history. Theoretically speaking, he has been pushing the envelope with this one. The barge, called Asymptote, is his pied-a-mer (as he likes to put it) when not in his cabanon in the Var. In Provence Damien ejected a grumbling shepherd, cleared out the peasant detritus, inserted a ground-source heat-pump and had the rustic interior coated in blinding white Corian. Naturally, it has been featured in Architectural Digest.

17 October 2026

Flora Watkins

Why I’ll never give up on diesel

Last time I filled up, I actually staggered when I looked at the display screen I have an addiction that is increasingly expensive to feed. My poison of choice is an intoxicating chemical compound called Hexadecane. Street name: ‘diesel’. After Marlboro Lights and my husband, it’s the longest committed relationship of my life. It is vital to my well-being. Bouncing around the lanes in my old Discovery 4 makes me happy. Sometimes I will play 'Fuel' by Metallica (‘Gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire'). But it comes at a cost. Diesel prices are now so high (around £2 a litre) that the last time I filled up, I actually staggered when I looked at the display screen. I’d only meant to put in £50 but got distracted doomscrolling.

16 October 2026

Penworthy

Three tips for Champions Day at Ascot

Qatar-sponsored British Champions Day at Ascot tomorrow offers a feast of top-class racing on its seven-race card. Significantly, too, it looks certain, even with some morning rain today, to be staged on untypically quick ground which means horses that excel on soft or heavy ground are going to be inconvenienced. For years, this has been the one major flat meeting of the year where cut in the ground was almost guaranteed but, after our dry summer and autumn, not tomorrow. This is also a meeting at which there have been plenty of shock results, never more so than a year ago when Powerful Glory won the Group 1 Qipco British Champions Sprint Stakes at 200-1 and Cicero’s Gift won the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at 100-1.

Alys Denby

Good riddance to Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney must be delighted that her novels are being pulled from British shelves over her support for Palestine Action. This woman is never happier than when denying people the chance to read her books or those of others. She has previously refused to allow her work to be translated into Hebrew and has brought the Edinburgh and Hay book festivals to the brink of financial ruin by backing a boycott of their main sponsor, Baillie Gifford. Unlike many of her fellow authors, Rooney is successful enough not to have to actually sell books to make a living, and good on her. But British readers should celebrate too, since we are now relieved of any feeling of responsibility to read her.

Arthur Reynolds

Pay no attention to a restaurant’s hygiene rating

Colonel Saab is not your average curry house: the tasting menu costs £90, and a giant fish tank is nowhere to be seen. Its starry clientele, who include Jude Bellingham and Keir Starmer, may therefore have been alarmed by recent reports that the restaurant closed temporarily after receiving a zero food hygiene rating (the lowest on the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme) from Westminster Council. But if my experience is anything to go by, they shouldn’t hesitate to visit more eateries on the council’s naughty list. This year, in the name of social media engagement, I’ve eaten at 13 zero or one-star-rated restaurants and counting. Some have been a tad suspicious.

15 October 2026

Olivia Potts

It’s the season of short ribs

I hereby officially declare autumn open! I am picturing myself bedecked with a wreath of perfect autumn leaves. The bright October sun beams down, warming the cool, crisp air. I am dressed in jewel tones – possibly a cloak – and I’m cradling a pumpkin in one arm and holding a leek in the other, my own autumnal orb and sceptre. There are conkers all around. The reality of autumn is probably more prosaic: an oversized sweatshirt, some gravy smeared up my forearm, and a grimly determined look as I gaze on the pumpkin and leek lying on my chopping board. It’s probably raining. But I am certainly surrounded by conkers, thanks to my small kids. Still, the feeling is the same: it’s exciting when it’s time to begin cold-weather cooking.

Bruce Anderson

Memories of Mijanou, the oenophile’s delight

Où sont les bouteilles d’antan? Or proprietors. The other day, some of us were reminiscing about Mijanou, in its day one of the finest restaurants in London. The late Neville Blech had a magnificent palate and his wife Sonia was a superb chef. During their days in Wales, she won a Michelin star, back then a rare honour in the principality. For some reason, she never found favour with the Michelin inspectors in London, although I thought that her ravioli aux truffes should have earned all three stars. Mijanou was extremely popular with politicians, especially Tory ones. That delighted Neville, yet there was one drawback. Some senior figures – foreign, defence, or Northern Ireland secretaries – had to be accompanied by two detectives.

Charlie Brooks

What cost-of-living crisis? A day at the Newmarket sales

Inspecting yearlings in the rain at Newmarket last Thursday was a bit like looking at girls in the Windmill Club – in the old days, of course – with their wet weather cycling kit on. You just don’t get much of an idea of what they might be capable of. But whatever the weather, when you enter the sales ground at Tattersalls, you step into a parallel universe populated by an eclectic bunch of coves. Over the three days of the premiere yearling auction in Europe, 400-odd colts and fillies went under the hammer. But there were two very different games being played out. The heavyweights in the ring were Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, and MV Magnier, spearheading the Coolmore Stud from Ireland.

14 October 2026

Lara Brown

The growing rebellion against screens in schools

In the late 17th century, Europe’s greatest intellectuals were consumed by the quarrel of the ancients and the modern, satirised by Jonathan Swift in The Battle of the Books. In the 18th century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau asked whether education should nurture children’s natural capacities or mould them to society’s expectations. The great educational dispute of the 21st century is rather less august: should children be reading books or collecting coins for cartoon robots? In the past decade, a new divide has opened in Britain’s classrooms. Not between rich and poor, clever and dull, or private and state schools, but between children still taught by teachers using whiteboards, pens and paper and those being instructed by an avatar on a screen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Flora Watkins

Meet Jared Cooney Horvath, the neuroscientist taking on screens in schools

‘I’ve been here a week, and I can’t figure it out,’ says Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, neuroscientist, teacher and now the figurehead in the fight to get screens out of classrooms. ‘Every other country is pulling the trigger on rolling EdTech back. But here, you’re spending £900 million a year on it, more than any other country – and no one gives a shit!’ He apologises for being sweary – but he’s passionate about this stuff and: ‘Hey, I’m an American!’ I wave it away: plenty of parents who control screen time at home – but feel undermined by online homework and school-issued iPads – are finding similar words creeping into their vocabulary, I say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Andrew Watts

Was I dumped for being a Zionist?

You may have seen those online questionnaires which calculate where on the political spectrum you are - not the fun ones, where you can find out which eighteenth century faction you’d have been in (High Church Tory, obviously), but the ones that gather your responses to a series of dogmatic assertions, generally about American politics. You may not have seen - because I’m guessing the algorithm only pitches thus to single people - their latest adverts, which suggest that you should require potential partners to use this service before you meet. Why waste time on a coffee date with someone to whom you are not politically aligned?

Alexander Larman

Forget Paddington, Winnie-the-Pooh is our national bear

Today makes the centenary of the publication of A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, which brought the bear of little brain to the world’s attention. It was not, in truth, the ubiquitous ursine’s first appearance – that would be Milne’s nearly-as-beloved When We Were Very Young, which came into the nation’s bookshops in 1924 – but that featured a rather cloying poem called ‘Teddy Bear’, featuring ‘Mr Edward Bear’, who would, if he was born today, probably need to go on the Ozempic: ‘A bear, however hard he tries, Grows tubby without exercise. Our Teddy Bear is short and fat, Which is not to be wondered at.

Rhys Laverty

The joy of late-night paternity leave TV

Gearing up for my fourth paternity leave, I knew the drill. For the older kids: batch-cooked meals, ready in the freezer. For the newborn: all the baby stuff down from the loft. For my wife: whatever the heck the heroic matriarch wanted. And for dad? A ready supply of films for those long solo night-shifts. Paternity leave nighttime viewing has but one purpose: stay awake. Specifically, stay awake whilst sitting as still as possible so as not to disturb the sleeping newborn on your chest. As such, there’s no point making grand designs to watch the five-star, high-brow things that you’ve been meaning to watch for goodness knows how long simply because you feel you ought to. Theoretically, I will really enjoy the critically acclaimed Shogun on Disney+.

13 October 2026

Zoe Strimpel

Booking a holiday has become a nightmare

Back the 1980s, travel agents controlled 90 per cent of all holiday bookings in the UK, face-to-face or via phone, with thousands of agencies and high street branches such as Lunn Poly and Thomas Cook. Then the internet struck. Like much else in modern life - supermarket checkouts, cab ordering, music streaming, stock trading - the boozy man in the drab suit or Silk Cut-mainlining woman in shoulder pads was jettisoned for greater value for money and control. As things stand, the mental cost of planning outweighs the pleasure of travelling But where travel is concerned, losing the middleman was a big mistake.

Iain Hollingshead

Why we need smutty novels

Unlike, seemingly every other journalist, I have never been wined, dined, charmed, sued or threatened by Jeffrey Archer, the energetic athlete, teacher, MP, novelist, peer, fundraiser, fantasist and jailbird who died last week. But Archer, in some ways, played an even more outsized role in my life. In 1991, aged 11, I picked up A Twist in the Tale, an entertaining collection of his short stories. And there, in ‘Check Mate’, I encountered sex – or at least the suggestion of sex – for the first time in any medium. There was a strange wholesomeness to literary sex education By today’s standards, the scene was relatively innocent. The captain of a local chess club finds himself captivated by a beautiful young woman at a tournament. He invites her home for more games of chess.

Harriet Dolby

Dogs in coats are an absurdity

With the days getting shorter, it is time we got our woollen trench coats out of the winter wardrobe. Meanwhile, a peculiar event happens for middle-class dogs: outerwear becomes crucial for even a short trot outside. What happened to personal responsibility? One of my biggest grievances - which persists despite contradicting most of my libertarian principles - is dogs in coats. Before the agricultural revolution, the late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers living in Eurasia started to domesticate wolves – the first step, almost 30,000 years ago, towards having a dachshund to defend against delivery drivers with their ferocious bark. It is fascinating that it is the dogs who happen to inhabit the boroughs of Richmond, Battersea and Chelsea who have a particular penchant for outerwear.

12 October 2026

Gavin Mortimer

The French are obsessed with our Royal Family

Buckingham Palace has never known such a box-office success. ‘Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style’ is the hottest ticket in town and the most visited exhibition in the Royal Collection Trust’s history. The display of hundreds of the late Queen’s dresses and other garments was scheduled to run from April to October 2026. Due to popular demand, the exhibition has been prolonged until April 2027. ‘We are delighted to extend its run, ensuring that even more people from across the UK and around the world will have the chance to experience this once-in-a-generation tribute,’ explained Tim Knox, Director of the Royal Collection.

Henry Lloyd

Why you should buy a Chinese car

I have only ever owned two cars in my life, and I have loved them both dearly. Both were grey and both were Volkswagen Polos. Founded by the Nazis to produce ‘the people’s car’, Volkswagen has been a manufacturing behemoth for nearly 100 years. But in times of intensive change in the automotive market, they’re now driving down a bumpy road. Just last month they announced a further 50,000 planned job cuts, on top of the initial 50,000 that was billed in March. None of this is surprising, being the result of a bloated giant sinking in an increasingly competitive forecourt: the Chinese.

Max Hardy

The trouble with raising sons

In 2019, our second son was born and our family was, to my mind, complete. Just two years later, my wife sought to persuade me that I did not know my mind. It only took her three more years to succeed. In 2024, our third child was born: another son. That was not what my wife had ordered, and Lionel Richie’s promise of ‘once, twice, three times a lady’ had turned out to be empty words. I’ve seen too many teenage boys shrug their shoulders when asked what they intend to do when they leave school In many cultures and countries, three sons would deem us truly blessed. But surveying the disaster zone of the playroom, we knew we were instead truly messed. A recurrent theme on Mumsnet is posts about ‘gender disappointment’.

11 October 2026

Anonymous

The Shooting Bore

Algie thinks it very remiss of his wife Emma to call him a grouse tart, though he could have sworn she used the word whore. Hasn’t he spent 40 years damn well keeping a (slightly sagging) roof over all their heads, sending their ‘three peas – Poppy, Penny and Pippa – to Cheltenham Ladies and generally keeping the good ship Snodworthy-Ffiennes on an even keel? So what if he sucked up to that dreadful oik Derek, who made a fortune from office furniture, and now owns three grouse moors? How on earth do you think you get invited to have a crack on one of the world’s greatest shoots? Yes, OK, on reflection, perhaps it was a bit craven to have a cashmere tweed gilet made up for him, complete with mink-lined collar, but it did the trick.