Imagine you have been walking up into the sky for four days on end, until you reach a frozen plateau as high as Mont Blanc. Only now does the serious business begin. Starting at midnight, you climb continuously for six hours in the dark up what seems like a near-vertical scree slope the height of
Chris Patten is used to rudeness. When he was the last governor of Hong Kong, the Chinese used to call him a ‘jade-faced prostitute’ and a ‘tango-dancer for a thousand years’, and other baffling insults. In these very pages he is called EU Marshal Chris PZtain, a byword for general sell-outery. To the neo-conservatives of
We all know what ‘vigorous exchange of views’ means. But rarely can a summit have ended with both sides boasting that their chap managed to get some juicy insults past the other fellow. Reading the press coverage on both sides of the Channel, a cartoon-like picture emerges. One imagines Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac like
Mercedes-Benz in association with The Spectator is offering readers the chance to win a wonderful 2-night break including dinner at the 5-star Lygon Arms in the Cotswolds with the use of a new E-Class Saloon. To enter the competition, write an epigram on the theme ‘Everything’ and send it to Epigram Competition, The Spectator, 56
I confess bias: I like Mercedes. I’ve owned several, though by the time they got down to my level they were getting on a bit. But they last, these beasts with the three-point star, which is one of the reasons we respect them. How many other up-market breeds do you find serving out their last
It is not every day that an exhibition of just 25 works of art is officially opened by a head of state. But this is Italy – and the art belongs to the legendary Gianni Agnelli, head of the Fiat empire. The little gallery containing it is designed by Renzo Piano; and it is perched
Tom Hill, a 19-year-old Marlburian (and son of parents with deep pockets, we hope), is suing the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA exam board (commonly known as OCR) that marked his A-levels for damages of up to £100,000. Now here’s an odder thing. If many more follow suit – and there is evidence they will –
Sydney I live near the main road here, running down to Coogee Beach. Sun-lovers slouch down it all weekend: Australian families, British backpackers, Swedish grannies, American students. Last week they came as usual, in their shorts and their sleeveless tops, their hats and their flip-flops and their suncream. But there was something wrong on Sunday:
The drama of the European single currency has had more than its fair share of theatrical twists and turns. The prize for the most spectacular transformation in the long-running Folies Maastricht must, however, be awarded to the quaintly named Stability and Growth Pact. This character entered Act 1 as a strutting hero, but now –
Denpaser SEVERAL days after the bombs, the people of Bali, and tourists who have stayed on, are still in profound shock, still asking, ‘Why here? Why us?’ This was not an American embassy or military base, so why Bali? Yet in the twisted minds of the bombers an entertainment zone packed with alcohol-fuelled Westerners was
I confess bias: I like Mercedes. I’ve owned several, though by the time they got down to my level they were getting on a bit. But they last, these beasts with the three-point star, which is one of the reasons we respect them. How many other up-market breeds do you find serving out their last
Mercedes-Benz in association with The Spectator is offering readers the chance to win a wonderful 2-night break including dinner at the 5-star Lygon Arms in the Cotswolds with the use of a new E-Class Saloon. To enter the competition, write an epigram on the theme ‘Everything’ and send it to Epigram Competition, The Spectator, 56
The average man sitting on the Tube, according to Gilbert of Gilbert & George, sees nothing but breasts. Now, that may underestimate the range of interests of the average man (though it is entirely consistent with the stratagems used by mass-circulation newspapers to attract his attention). As for G&G, on the contrary, they find ‘ideas
The 2002 Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize winner. There were more than 100 entries from a total of eight countries. The runners-up were Clementine Cecil, Gregory Lascelles, Jonathan Ledgard, Rory Stewart and Ben Yarde-Buller. Just below us we could hear the chowkidar tut-tut-tutting his disapproval on the ground with his stick, pacing up and down, tut,
Jack Straw looked acutely uncomfortable. He was standing in the doorway of his tall Victorian house in Islington’s Battledean Road, scruffy on the outside, plush inside. He was casually dressed in sandals and cords, saying he had hoped for a quiet evening. It was May 1976, and his visitors were Roger Courtiour and myself, both
Forty years ago the Americans won what I hope will be the nearest thing to nuclear war between superpowers – of which only one is left – ever fought; and the fact that they won it without firing a shot should not diminish but rather increase the extent of the victory. What I am referring
Elisabeth Furse, who died on Monday at the age of 92, was one of the most amazing hostesses London has known. One could not say she had a ‘salon’, for the word carries connotations of politeness and self-restraint which were entirely foreign to her. When I first descended the fire-escape-style steps to her basement flat
Why didn’t the Tories invite Pete Waterman to speak at their conference? The guru behind Kylie Minogue who has become a familiar television face as a judge on ITV’s Pop Idol certainly wouldn’t have felt out of place. He’s used to helping nervous unknowns who want to make it big. And his experience sitting beside
Mercedes-Benz in association with The Spectator is offering readers the chance to win a wonderful 2-night break including dinner at the 5-star Lygon Arms in the Cotswolds with the use of a new E-Class Saloon. To enter the competition, write an epigram on the theme ‘Everything’ and send it to Epigram Competition, The Spectator, 56
Hackney, E8 Murals are unfashionable, and peace murals commissioned by loony-left councillors at the height of their self-indulgent assault on the Thatcher government are perhaps most unfashionable of all. Yet the Hackney Peace Carnival Mural in London, created between 1983 and 1985 and now threatened with demolition, really ought to be saved. It is a