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With Austria’s latest Covid lockdown due to begin at midnight, Viennese citizens were enjoying a final night of freedom. And then the shooting started. The temperature was warm for this time of year, and people were sitting at pavement tables outside the bars and cafes, enjoying the balmy weather and obeying the coronavirus guidelines. What
It took me 30 years of traveling to learn that my Heimat is Prussia
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By the time I got to Mohrenstrasse, the protesters and their BLM placards were long gone. The only thing they’d left behind was some red paint, splattered on the sign above the subway station. I guess this was meant to imply that by naming this U-Bahn station Mohrenstrasse, Berlin’s public transport bigwigs had blood on
He was one of Britain’s greatest portrait photographers, possibly the greatest
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Is Boris Johnson a fan of Harry Perry Robinson? If he isn’t, he really ought to be. Reading this absorbing biography, I was struck by how much they have in common — especially in their early lives. Both men went to public school, then on to Oxford, then into journalism, where they proved incapable of
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At first glance, the pretty German town of Coburg seems an unlikely arena for the latest skirmish in the culture wars. The birthplace of Prince Albert (and one of Queen Victoria’s favourite holiday spots), it’s a quaint and tranquil place which miraculously came through the last century virtually unscathed. Yet now this historic backwater finds
Rye encapsulates a quintessential sort of Englishness: creative yet conservative, cultural yet parochial
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How have you been filling these listless homebound hours we’ve been given by the government? I’ve been frittering them away playing online chess, and it seems I’m not alone. The Economist reports that traffic on chess.com, the leading chess website, has more than doubled during lockdown. Log on at any time and you’ll find tens
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Now UKTV (owned by the BBC) has removed the classic ‘Germans’ episode of Fawlty Towers from its playlist, this sorry no-platform saga has tipped over from tragedy into farce. Is there really anyone in British broadcasting who doesn’t understand that this comic meisterwerk actually makes a mockery of xenophobia? Surely everyone can see it’s satirising
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The arts are in a state of crisis. How often have you heard that before? Well, this time around it happens to be true. In the age of coronavirus, it’s clear that the old way of doing things won’t work any more. Theatres, in particular, have been quick to grasp the bleeding obvious: cramming lots
Under the czars and the communists, Georgia was where Russians went to party
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We are in a basement gallery in London’s West End, and Britain’s greatest comedian is doing what he does best — sharing his delight at the daft absurdities of daily life. He remembers seeing a little boy wading into the freezing waters at Aberdeen. ‘You make a certain noise when the wave comes up. It’s
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What’s the best way to keep in shape during the lockdown? That’s the First World problem I’ve been using to distract me during these strange, distressing times. My wife and teenage children are doing online workouts, but that looks far too tiring. Instead, I’m walking round Britain — in my back garden. I got the
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When times are hard it helps to remember those who’ve endured far harder times. I remember my friend Manfred Alexander, who escaped from a concentration camp and hid in my grandfather’s flat in Berlin during the second world war. The month he spent alone in that apartment was far harder than any self-isolation I’ll ever
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I was still digesting my delicious breakfast (kippers, poached eggs and soda bread — all local) when the sad news reached our party of freeloaders (sorry, I mean distinguished international journalists): a force ten gale was blowing in, so tonight’s opening ceremony on the headland by the harbour had been cancelled. ‘Ah well, let’s go
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As Big Ben fails to bong tonight, and Brexiteers toast a famous victory, will those who voted for Remain be ranting or sulking, or simply crying into their beer? If so, they should perhaps stop feeling so sorry for themselves. Of course, if you’re a Europhile, today is hardly a day of celebration – but
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Nicholas Parsons died this morning at the age of 96. In 2011, he was interviewed by William Cook for The Spectator, who noted that Parsons’ enduring success lay in his ability to laugh at himself: When I was a kid, watching Sale of the Century on my grandma’s colour telly, Nicholas Parsons used to seem
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‘These regions are not under the control of the central government,’ reads a warning on a map of Georgia in the bustling centre of Tbilisi. ‘Travelling to these regions is not advisable.’ One of these regions is Abkhazia, only a few hours’ drive away. The other is South Ossetia, barely an hour from here. Since
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Here in St Edmundsbury cathedral, a bunch of clerics and local bigwigs are preparing for a most unusual anniversary. Throughout 2020 the inhabitants of this historic market town will be celebrating the 1,000th birthday of a building that ceased to exist nearly 500 years ago. The Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds was founded by
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It was a Saturday afternoon in September, the end of summer, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I’d gone to see my son play football in Slough. He was on the bench, his team had lost, and now I had to carry his kitbag home while he went out with his teammates. I’d missed