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I sometimes feel like I have lost ten IQ points per child. If my husband and I ever have a fourth, I might have to quit writing altogether and find a less cognitively demanding line of work – maybe run for political office. The causes of “mommy brain” are disputed. Studies have shown that, after she gives birth, certain parts of a woman’s brain become more active while others shrink. Once this was thought to be a result of temporary hormone changes, but now scientists believe that pregnancy causes a woman’s brain to be permanently restructured. Even years after their children’s births, mothers’ brains still show a reduction in gray matter volume.

Americans love their killers. Still, Luigi Mangione, who shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson dead in December 2024, may be the most beloved of them all. It took a special sort of fetishist to see something in maniacs like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed for no reason other than their sadistic compulsions. Mangione, though? Nearly every American has been ground down by our country’s healthcare system. Mangione’s defenders rarely dispute that he gunned down Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare Police had prepared for a mob last Friday, as Mangione appeared in a Manhattan courthouse to plead guilty to federal stalking charges. But by midmorning, the officers outnumbered everyone they’d been sent to contain. The cult of Luigi had not come.

I don’t know how many readers have visited the grave of Dobby the house-elf, but any who have should immediately be sectioned and have their subscriptions to The Spectator canceled. This strong course of action occurs to me after reading one of those stories that can make you laugh, cry and smack your head into your hands all at once. It relates to a “memorial” which apparently sits on Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The area is run by the National Trust – a charity which used to look after the UK’s heritage sites. The beach in question was where filming took place for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

It was in Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where I was sitting waiting for the judge’s verdict, that I decided I needed a better way of handling Rod Liddle’s column. As editor of this magazine, I had inherited one of its greatest writers; a force of nature loved by his readers for his bravery and candor. But it sometimes led to difficulties: in this case, criminal prosecution. The judge had a choice: prosecute our owners, the editor, or the magazine. The magazine was fined. “Rod was right,” I was told by Aidan Barclay, who as proprietor had nearly ended up in the dock himself. “But truth is no defense. Not any more. You need to spot these things before they blow up.

Since becoming Spectator editor there was one observation I heard more often from readers than any other: “Rod is the first page I turn to every week.” Whatever people’s politics, background or other interests, to be a Spectator reader was to love Rod. Rod did his best, of course, to be unlovable. At least in print. Nothing, and no one, apart from possibly Millwall, was spared from his criticism. Savage, foul-mouthed, merciless. But also hilarious, superbly well-informed and honest. Above all honest. There are all sorts of enlightened souls in and around journalism who pretend to that virtue.

One of the joys of being director of digital at The Spectator, back in 2015, was seeing the magazine proofs before they went to print. Rod Liddle’s column was the first thing I looked for, always the one I was most eager to read. He made me laugh every single time, something very few columnists are able to do. I was annoyed I liked those columns, because I didn’t want to like Rod Liddle. All I knew of his personal life was through the scandal that followed him leaving his wife during the so-called “Sextator” years. I took a dim view of that. Although we both worked for The Spectator, I didn’t actually meet Rod for a long time because, woke snowflake that he was, he only ever worked from home. The first time we met was at a Spectator summer party, years later.