Chas Newkey-Burden is co-author, with Julie Burchill, of Not In My Name: A Compendium of Modern Hypocrisy. He also wrote Running: Cheaper Than Therapy and is the host of Jesus Christ They’ve Done It – the Threads podcast
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Over the past few months, I’ve been training for the London Marathon, so most weekends I’ve been out running more than 20 miles at a stretch. I carry the usual bits to make these long slogs vaguely civilised – energy gels, a water bottle, a couple of fruit pastilles. They help, of course. But there’s one thing I absolutely cannot do without: music. Non-runners sometimes ask
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Lisa Haseldine reports from Svalbard; Matthew Parris reflects on the Iran crisis during Holy Week; Damian Thompson assesses how Pope Leo XIV is quietly reshaping the Vatican; Peter Pomerantsev reviews Jack Watling’s Statecraft; Chas Newkey-Burden provides his notes on marathons; and finally, from Provence, Catriona Olding reflects on comfort and companionship.
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Like many good ideas, the London marathon was conceived over a drink in a pub. Inspired by their experience running the New York marathon in 1979, two British athletes met in the Dysart Arms, next to Richmond Park, to discuss staging a similar race in London. It became an iconic event and, such has been
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Nigel Farage’s social media posts from his visit to Ipswich Town’s football ground have caused exactly the sort of meltdown you’d expect. The Reform UK leader filmed himself inside the home dressing room at Portman Road, held up a replica shirt with the number 10 and his name on the back and quipped that he
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Life is riddled with things that impersonate something in a hideously disappointing way: the regret of Pepsi, the affront of the rail replacement bus and, for runners, the tedium of the treadmill. They are one of the most tiresome inventions to scar this planet, offering a mind-numbing bastardisation of one of life’s joys. I’m a
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France is holding local elections and the candidates are falling over themselves to appeal to a peculiar demographic: dog lovers. A candidate in the south-west city of Albi is promising shared human-dog drinking fountains, with the upper level for the owner and the bottom level for the pet. Her opponent has bitten back with a plan
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A broken-down washing machine is generally regarded as definitely a Bad Thing. There is the expense and hassle of repairing or replacing the machine, the prospect of a flooded kitchen, and the sudden realisation that your underwear stock is … less abundant than you hoped. But when our washing machine expired recently, I was secretly thrilled because it gave me an
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Norwich has known some beef in its time: from the Kett’s Rebellion against land enclosures in 1549, to the Great Blow during the English Civil War. Now there’s something new dividing the East Anglian city: pigeons. The ‘pooping menaces’ are pushing the council to ‘adopt extreme measures’, says the Guardian, The Times compared local scenes
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When a pet dies, grief doesn’t arrive alone. It brings with it an awkward entourage: embarrassment, self-consciousness, the creeping suspicion that our sorrow might look disproportionate or self indulgent. So we lower our voices when we speak of our loss. We apologise for being ‘silly’. We add the expected caveat: I know it’s not the
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The National Trust has blacklisted a 71-year-old volunteer after he pointed out thousands of spelling mistakes and factual errors on the charity’s website, and then expressed irritation when his painstaking efforts were brushed aside. Sensible charity managers overlook minor human imperfections, concentrating instead on volunteers’ generosity Andy Jones had volunteered for the Trust for more than
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Everyone is giving up something these days. Even before this week’s flood of new year’s resolutions, we’re in the age of subtraction as people shed vices like old skins. Cigarettes, alcohol – those villains have been booed off the stage by the newly health-conscious, whose accusing stare is now turning to a fresh culprit: caffeine.
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Donald Trump is plotting to turn Britain into a ‘nuclear launchpad’, according to a startling report in the Daily Mail. Leaked Pentagon documents suggest a $264 million upgrade of RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk will end with US nuclear weapons on British soil for the first time since they were removed under Barack Obama in 2008.
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It’s one of the last bastions of national orthodoxy, one that people look forward to for months, but many vegans dread Christmas dinner. It’s not the food that’s the problem – it’s the conversation. Veganism is now as mainstream as oat milk lattes, so for 364 days of the year it barely raises an eyebrow,
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I was 12 years of age and mooching along Putney high street when someone thrust into my hand a leaflet that changed my life. It bore a photograph of a cat with its head covered in electrodes, and the slogan: Curiosity Will Kill This Cat. I had a beloved cat of my own called Chippy.
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It may be a pagan festival but thank God for Halloween and all its joys: the child’s delight at being dressed up and out after dark, our thrill at pretending to be frightened, the faint sense that for one night, the ordinary world has slipped its moorings. On Halloween, the country briefly remembers how to
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When I first started running 25 years ago, it was the simplicity that captured my heart. There were no complicated techniques to master, no ghastly membership fees or extortionate equipment to shell out on. You just needed to buy a pair of shoes, get out there in the fresh air and put one foot in
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Transport for London is refusing to take down a social media video which encourages owners to take their cats on the tube network. The unhinged Instagram video shows two owners taking their cats on an escalator, in a lift and on a train, with the slogan: ‘This is your sign to start travelling with your
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Just when you thought we could all stop talking about flags, Gary Neville has arrived with his size ten boots to keep the ball in play. The ex-Man Utd footballer, turned property developer, said he removed a union flag from one of his Manchester sites because it was being ‘used in a negative fashion’. He
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Lucy Letby’s barrister says she has ‘new hope’, as he prepares to submit 1,000 pages of fresh evidence that he believes will ‘clear her name’. In an ideal justice system, evidence that proves an inmate’s innocence would of course lead to their release, but we don’t have an ideal justice system, as I learned as
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From emails to ‘breaking news’ alerts to texts, our phones come under a bombardment of notifications these days. But there’s one kind that always brightens my day – the one that tells me that a friend has sent me a voice note. This, however, seems to make me unusual. ‘I don’t want to hear your
