Frances Robinson

Life is starting to look a lot like the 1980s: Russia is flexing its muscles, the Labour party is tearing itself apart, and there’s a woman in No. 10. Political thinkers are falling over themselves to over-analyse the geopolitical precipice upon which the world seems to be balanced. But life doesn’t have to be serious all the time, so it’s worth reflecting on another aspect of heading back in time: we’re due a revival of the-bonkbuster. Frances Robinson and Camilla Swift discuss the return of the bonkbuster: Jilly Cooper’s new book Mount! is published next month, and features the return of Rupert Campbell-Black, 30 years after he first appeared in Riders.

June the 24th was a grim morning for Remain voters, and we’ve been working through the seven stages of grief ever since. Given that nobody has the faintest idea when, how or even if the UK will actually leave, acceptance is still some way off. But Remainers are a pragmatic bunch and many have now worked out that their own personal Brexit can be deftly avoided by taking another EU nationality. Likewise, UK citizens living in the EU, who have found to their horror that they are pawns in a very complex game of migrant chess between Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker, are concluding that now is a wise moment to complete the paperwork for residency or citizenship. So which variety of passport would we most like? Controversially, Belgium is the top of many Remainers’ wish lists.