The Spectator

Haircut

From our UK edition

‘I don’t want a haircut — I just dropped in to talk about where I’m going this summer.’

Gorilla

From our UK edition

‘I guess they’re just trying to deal with the psychological torture of being in captivity.’

Barometer | 20 June 2013

From our UK edition

Painting the town The tarting-up of Northern Irish villages on the route between Belfast International airport and Lough Erne, the resort which hosted the G8 summit, has been likened to the ‘Potemkin villages’ employed by the Soviet Union in the 1920s to impress foreign visitors. But is the concept of a Potemkin village itself a

Portrait of the week | 20 June 2013

From our UK edition

Home On the eve of the G8 summit, at a press conference with David Cameron, the Prime Minister, President Vladimir Putin of Russia bluntly opposed British proposals to aid the Syrian opposition: ‘People who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their entrails in public before the cameras. Are these the

The week in books

From our UK edition

This week’s magazine is full to the brim with cracking book reviews. Here is a selection of quotes to whet your appetite. Sam Leith on Modernity Britain, David Kynaston’s rampaging account of the birth of the consumer age during Harold Macmillan’s premiership: ‘The jacket quotes a passage from late in the book that is an

Tattoo

From our UK edition

‘We were impressed that you had the company logo tattooed on your forehead. But you haven’t got the job.’