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Spectator TV Presents

How the modern Middle East was made – Simon Sebag Montefiore | Quite right!

Writers

Spectator Life

An intelligent mix of culture, food, style and property, plus where to go and what to see.

How the shallot got political

From Spectator Life

For generations we relied on the good old flat-capped honesty of the onion. It was unpretentious, predictable and perfectly content to hide in a bag at the dark recesses of kitchen cupboards until dragged out, to be chopped into the bottom of a mince or fried into submission as the ‘healthy’ garnish in a bapped burger. Onions knew their place.    But over the last few months, an allium armada has breached our shores. An aggressive amphibious landing has invaded Middle England’s supermarkets and thus the showier parts of my kitchen units. These are shallots: small pink immigrants arriving in vast, unstoppable numbers.

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Wealth Tax Debate: Laffer vs Bastani

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Magazine

This week's magazine

Rod Liddle, 1960-2026

To be a Spectator reader was to love Rod

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 unloveable. 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.

To be a Spectator reader was to love Rod

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 unloveable. 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.

Culture

The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.

What happened to Gomorrah?

From the magazine

You’re not going to like this and it pains me to say so but Gomorrah: The Origins is not in the same league as Gomorrah. The wardrobe is more stylish, the characters are more approachable, the dialogue is more expensive, the locations are more attractive, the plotting is more comprehensible, and the mise-en-scène is lusher, more cinematic and less spare. But in the context of the original, these qualities aren’t so much a virtue as a capitulation. Gomorrah (or Gomorra – La Serie, as it was in Italian, so one can never remember whether or not to include the ‘h’) ran on Sky Atlantic for five seasons from 2014 to 2021. This was a period where Anglo-American TV had long since begun its inexorable decline into glib, shallow and predictable diversity-cast wokedom.

Podcasts

Cartoons

Grizelda

‘‘Hello! We all died laughing at your writing!’ ’

Cartoon

muffuletta

Olivia Potts

My quest for the perfect muffuletta

From Spectator Life