Spectator Life

Farewell then, the Crooked House. The 18th-century pub, in the West Midlands village of Himley, hasn’t just stopped being a pub – it’s stopped existing, full stop. Just days after its sale to a private buyer for ‘alternative use’, the famously wonky building – where coins and marbles appeared to roll uphill – was gutted by fire and has now been demolished. Unsurprisingly this has given rise to suspicions aplenty, but we’re taking it as a chance to celebrate Britain’s oddest pubs. Step this way for underground tunnels, pubs without bars – and some very single-minded landlords… Oliver Cromwell spent a night here and Inspector Morse visited in a 1990 episode The Temple of Convenience, Manchester The clue’s in the name: this place used to be a public toilet.

The most recent UFC event, UFC 291, was a fascinating spectacle. Of all the compelling fights that took place, the final one, which saw Justin Gaethje face off against Dustin Poirier, was by far the best. Shortly after Gaethje stole the show with a devastating head-kick knockout of Poirier, Conor McGregor took to Twitter – sorry, X ­– to give his thoughts. More specifically, he took to X to warn Gaethje that, very soon, he would ‘slap’ him around.  The McGregor of today is not the McGregor of 2015. He’s not even the McGregor of 2020 A few years ago, perhaps, such a threat would have carried some weight. It would have been met with a mixture of debate and excitement. In 2023, however, McGregor is a pale comparison to the fighter he once was.

Americans awoke on Sunday morning to find themselves bathing in wave after wave of schadenfreude. In Melbourne, the unthinkable had happened: the US Women’s National Team had been defeated – and eliminated from the football World Cup. The online criticism was unrelenting. ‘They really are equal to the men’s team,’ said The Spectator World’s Stephen L. Miller. ‘Any men’s team that was as cocky as this US women’s soccer team and got eliminated this early in a shocking upset would get absolutely obliterated by sports media,’ tweeted radio host Clay Travis.

The all-important ground conditions at Glorious Goodwood have varied from 'good to soft' to 'heavy’ this week and that trend could continue over the next two days with a mixed forecast. Throw in the complications of the draw and the unique undulating track and there are plenty of challenges out there for punters. Starting with today, there are two competitive handicaps that always grab my attention: the Coral Goodwood Handicap (1.50 p.m.) over a marathon trip of more than two and a half miles and the Coral Golden Mile (3 p.m.). Over the last decade, horses drawn in single figures have won nine of the last ten runnings of the Golden Mile and horses drawn one to five have the best record of all.

With former President of the United States Donald Trump now indicted on four counts relating to attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, here's a look at motion pictures where leaders are put on trial. To Kill a King (2003) – full movie available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uViHCp-jytE&t=5444s I confess to possessing little sympathy with the plight of King Charles I in Mike Barker’s (Best Laid Plans, 1999) watchable English Civil War drama. As depicted by Rupert Everett, he’s arrogant, petulant, and totally untrustworthy. He seems to accept parliament’s mild terms for peace, all while plotting further bloodshed in the name of the 'divine right of Kings'. To his credit, Charles faces his end bravely.

Let’s play a game of word association. I’ll start: ‘skinhead’. Hmm. I think I can guess which words instantly occurred to you: ‘thug’ perhaps, ‘hooligan’ probably and possibly even ‘racist’? Yet for anyone who remembers the original incarnation of skinheads, another word will always spring to mind: ‘reggae’. If you believe that Britain’s love affair with reggae began in the late 1970s with Bob Marley, I’m afraid you’re out by several years and several million record sales. It began in the late 1960s with a happy confluence of Caribbean immigrants, Trojan Records and skinheads.

Rishi Sunak’s strategy for solving Britain’s crippling housing shortage has been revealed: converting redundant takeaway restaurants into homes. It was a strange role reversal for Sunak, so recently cast as the potential saviour of many of these outlets during his Rishi’s dishes period. Yet fast forward three years and here he is as Prime Minister announcing – not just the demise of many of these places – but their apparent imminent demolition in favour of a million new homes. Mains were made fresh to order, the fiddly sides like spring rolls and prawn toast all assembled painstakingly by hand The conversation of old takeaways was, significantly, the headline detail that was singled out in pre-announcement media briefings.

The Grade 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes, first run at Ascot in 1951, has lost some of its lustre in recent years. Many of best middle-distance horses have swerved the race and it has often been left with small fields of only modest quality. Yet tomorrow’s race (Ascot, 3.40 p.m.) is undoubtedly a contest to savour. It has been dubbed a 'race for the ages' with some of the best three-year-old colts, the so-called 'Classic generation', taking on their elders for the first time. The Betfred Derby winner Auguste Rodin and the runner-up King of Steel are at the head of the market and a lot of experts feel that, with the weight for age concession, three-year-olds are the horses to back at this time of year.