An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
First things first, as this is an article about toilets, we need to establish if the word ‘toilet’ is an acceptable word. Here at The Spectator, editorial opinion on this crucial point is deeply divided. Some have expressed a preference for ‘bog’. Others opt for ‘john’, ‘jakes’, or lavatory. We also got votes for ‘dunny’, restroom, WC, outhouse, ‘chugger’,
Over ten years ago years ago, I made the transition from auction house ‘expert’ to antiques dealer. And it came as a rude shock. Nothing like a healthy dose of comeuppance; deference vanished overnight. Auction houses are open to the public for consultation, even the grander ones in London’s West End; or that is how it was in the
At long last, hardback books, it seems, are finally drifting into, if not obsolescence, then at least abeyance. It turns out that punters are chary of buying hefty tomes, and so publishers are considering putting books out in paperback first. For once, this is a literary development that I will be applauding. For centuries, hardback books were
Dear old Coutts, the private bank used by the King, now requires clients to have £3 million in the kitty before they deign to allow you to open an account. The £3 million minimum deposit is the biggest single jump of the bank’s wealth test in its illustrious 333-year history, designed to attract ‘ultra-high-net-worth individuals’ apparently. Whoever they are, I am not one of them. I had
AI is set to take over all cognitive tasks in the next few years. Your hard-won career as a paralegal, data analyst, radiologist, coder or novelist is about to be hacked out from under you. So far, so apocalyptic. But what about the jobs that are primarily embodied? Sous-chef, rehabilitation nurse, plumber, dog-trainer? These are expected to lag
New wars bring new fundraising efforts. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainians who already lived in London or moved here as a result of the war have conducted a subtle but concerted gastronomic campaign on behalf of their country. Somehow, this avoids all shrillness – unlike the dreadful and relentless Cook for ‘Palestine’ movement. The
When we think of the Renaissance, our minds naturally drift to figures such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo – and rightly so. These are individuals who transformed our understanding of art, science and human potential. What we tend not to consider, however, is how close we might be to another cultural revolution. That is
Princess Maria Carolina de Bourbon des Deux-Siciles isn’t a name that rolls off the tongue – but it’s now on the lips of every socialite and political pundit in France. The 22-year-old Italian aristocrat, who is the elder daughter of the Duke of Castro, was splashed across the cover of gossip magazine Paris Match last
You set off on a spring morning, windows down, full of hope. Sunglasses, flasks of tea and a picnic rug are packed. You are ready to experience the freedom of the road, leave your worries in the rear-view mirror, put pedal to the metal (and every other optimistic road trip cliché). Follow the brown signs to the Pembrokeshire Coast 200, South West 660, Wales Way, Antrim Coast Road or any
One of the disadvantages of having a daughter who is both given to wayward behaviour in public and named Rose is that my increasingly frantic cries of ‘Wait, Rose! Wait, Rose!’ make me sound like an especially unhinged proselytizer for the middle classes’ favourite supermarket. When we do eventually make it inside the hallowed doors of Waitrose, however, I can feel my pulse rate returning to
After three years of theatrical um-ing and ah-ing, the Prince and Princess of Wales have seemingly acceded to the obvious: Prince George is apparently going to Eton. Despite their perennial posturing at being a ‘modern’ royal family (is there such a thing?) there was really only one option. Eton is after all – somewhat paradoxically
Last week I dreamt I was a cowboy. My name was Billy ‘Toothpick’ Pickett, and I was the fastest pistolero east of Whiskey Row. I dreamt of robbing stagecoaches. I dreamt of playing three-card monte with Toothless Dan down by Granite Creek. I dreamt of owning a Smith & Wesson and shooting buffalo. I dreamt
Ever fancied an extra family member or new best friend supplied on demand and available for as long as required? Ever dreamt you could summon up a surrogate to explain yourself out of an awkward romantic entanglement, or a presentable spouse to secure an employment opportunity (like Alan Partridge’s rented wife in the ‘Hamilton Water Breaks’
One of the funniest – and in my opinion, falsest – things women have long said is ‘I’m doing it for myself – not for men’ about improving the way they look. Men have rarely said the same about women, which reflects that men have never been principally valued for their looks, historically, as they generally earned far more money than
It is one of the world’s most remote corners – but Greenland is playing an increasingly important role in global affairs. In January last year, the island’s 57,000 residents became an object of desire for Donald Trump. ‘I think Greenland we’ll get because it has to do with freedom of the world,’ declared the bombastic
In all the recent hoo-ha about banknotes and who or what to put on them, one name has been curiously absent – that of John Constable. Born 250 years ago this year, he was the son of a prosperous Essex miller and merchant who would rise to become probably the greatest proponent of landscape painting in
In his novel Coming up for Air (1939), George Orwell has his benighted protagonist, George Bowling, bite into a sausage, only to discover that it tastes of something else altogether: ‘…pop! The thing burst in my mouth like a rotten pear. A sort of horrible soft stuff was oozing all over my tongue. But the taste! For a moment I just couldn’t believe it. Then I rolled my
It’s the most talked about comeback in France since Charles de Gaulle came out of retirement in 1958. The general may have launched the Fifth Republic, but Céline Dion is limiting herself to ten evenings at the Paris La Défense Arena between September 12 and October 14. Dion is French Canadian, but the French have adopted her as their own, as they did
When most readers think of the late novelist David Lodge, it is his peerlessly funny and incisive campus novels, such as Changing Places and Small World, that immediately come to mind. While his satires on progressive academia are indeed some of his finest achievements, this is down to Lodge’s Catholicism, which was not merely a religious faith but a central guiding
It’s a funny thing, being a feminist surrounded by women on weight-loss drugs. As someone who recognises the health risks of being clinically obese, I’ve never been a fat liberationist – but pretty much all of us used to be against prescribed beauty standards. In practice this meant we would critique the harmful impacts of
When you have children, it’s incumbent upon you to develop a variety of new skills – paramount amongst which is the ability to ignore unsolicited advice. From the moment you share a grainy black ultrasound with the world, it rolls in. Birth, breastfeeding, sleep, diet, teething, clothing, tantrums… everyone’s got ideas about how to do it right. If your
Why do we still struggle to say what we really mean? In an age when we’re all encouraged to overshare online, we can be remarkably evasive in real life. We’ve moved on a little from ‘he never married’ – but not much. Only last year, I went to a memorial service for a wonderful man who was so camp he made
There are plenty of reasons to be depressed about Britain right now. From our government, which consists mainly of sixth-formers with special needs, to our sporting teams, which conspire to lose across the world. And polls show this depression is real: in a poll on ‘national happiness’ in different countries Britain has plunged from 13th place to 29th, in only a
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a meme circulated on Facebook suggesting the same thing could never happen here because the potholes would prove too much of an impediment. Given the current state of the roads, I think we can safely say any invasion plans must surely now have been shelved. And thank goodness. Owing to the paucity of
The first time I took a ride in a Waymo was in 2024. It was summer in San Francisco, and my wife and I had spent several weeks watching these curious, sensor-laden Jaguar I-Paces gliding– driverless – up and down the city’s famous slopes. Intrigued, we downloaded the app, summoned one and climbed in. It was the stuff of sci-fi.
Nostalgia is often seen as a positive emotion, but the word actually derives from the Greek nostos, meaning ‘homecoming’, and algos, meaning ‘pain’. Nostalgia is really a type of homesickness, an ache for something lost. As audiences watch the new trailer for the HBO Harry Potter television series, the algos may hit pretty hard: those tantalising two minutes are the reminder we need that you can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice.
When we describe something – or someone – as an ‘acquired taste’, it is rarely a compliment. If we say it of Sharon, for example, it means that she is a bit of a pain in the neck. It’s the same with food: olives, anchovies and oysters are some of the finest foodstuffs on God’s earth but sometimes, in order to truly enjoy them, you have to first quiet your inner doubts by tuning out all the reasons
The past few years have seen a slew of devastating style assaults on the English language known as ‘LinkedIn speak’. You know the type of word salad: ‘synergise’ instead of ‘combine’, ‘ideated’ instead of ‘thought of’, ‘holistic’ instead of – well – looking at something as a whole. Alarmingly, there is now an app, Kagi Translate, that allows you to type
Bottomless brunch: it sounds disreputable, to start with. There’s the suggestion of indecency; that lower garments are optional, perhaps on the part of the poor waiting staff, like those ‘Butlers in the Buff’. And ‘brunch’ is surely the louchest of meals, invented purely so that people could roll into a restaurant after a long lie-in
