A perfect nightmare
Dylan Evans, the author of this book, was one of those oddballs who rather looked forward to the apocalypse, because it promised ‘challenging times ahead’. If, in the not too distant future, famines...
View ArticleSink or swim
The Lost Child begins with a scene of 18th-century distress and dissolution down by the docks, as a woman — once a slave in the West Indies, for a time a weaver and now an itinerant single mother...
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Portrait of the artist as a madman
Charles Dickens’s description of Cobham Park, Kent, in The Pickwick Papers makes it seem a perfect English landscape. Among its ‘long vistas of stately oaks and elms’, he wrote, ‘occasionally a...
View ArticleDiary
There are many good reasons for being in Edinburgh in August, when the population doubles and nobody looks twice if you walk down the street in a sequinned basque with a man dressed as a leopard on a...
View ArticleCan a nutter also be a terrorist?
When is a nutter not a nutter, but a politically motivated terrorist? And are those two states of being always mutually exclusive? Or are they always the same thing? That first question was asked, in a...
View ArticleHigh life
From my bedroom window I can see a little girl with blonde pigtails riding her bicycle round and round for hours on end. She’s German, looks ten years old and lives nearby. Next month I am finally...
View Article‘I wish you were never born’
All parents worry about the extent to which their children will expose their private weirdness to the world. They tell their teachers that Daddy takes his tea into the toilet and Mummy ‘actually pulled...
View ArticleMore sinned against than sinning
The 55-year-old ’flu-ridden John Charles Wallop, 3rd Earl of Portsmouth, his feet in a basin of warm water, shivered in the dock with fever but also with fear. Would the jury, assembled in 1823 in...
View ArticleBrexiteers need ladders to climb down
I am worried about the mental state of many Brexiteers. The author of The Spectator’s weekly Notes, Charles Moore, always… See the full story of Brexiteers need ladders to climb down on The Spectator.
View ArticleA perfect nightmare
Dylan Evans, the author of this book, was one of those oddballs who rather looked forward to the apocalypse, because… See the full story of A perfect nightmare on The Spectator.
View ArticleSink or swim
The Lost Child begins with a scene of 18th-century distress and dissolution down by the docks, as a woman —… See the full story of Sink or swim on The Spectator.
View ArticlePortrait of the artist as a madman
Charles Dickens’s description of Cobham Park, Kent, in The Pickwick Papers makes it seem a perfect English landscape. Among its… See the full story of Portrait of the artist as a madman on The Spectator.
View ArticleDiary
There are many good reasons for being in Edinburgh in August, when the population doubles and nobody looks twice if… See the full story of Diary on The Spectator.
View ArticleCan a nutter also be a terrorist?
When is a nutter not a nutter, but a politically motivated terrorist? And are those two states of being always… See the full story of Can a nutter also be a terrorist? on The Spectator.
View ArticleHigh life
From my bedroom window I can see a little girl with blonde pigtails riding her bicycle round and round for… See the full story of High life on The Spectator.
View Article‘I wish you were never born’
All parents worry about the extent to which their children will expose their private weirdness to the world. They tell… See the full story of ‘I wish you were never born’ on The Spectator.
View ArticleMore sinned against than sinning
The 55-year-old ’flu-ridden John Charles Wallop, 3rd Earl of Portsmouth, his feet in a basin of warm water, shivered in… See the full story of More sinned against than sinning on The Spectator.
View ArticleBrexiteers need ladders to climb down
I am worried about the mental state of many Brexiteers. The author of The Spectator’s weekly Notes, Charles Moore, always… See the full story of Brexiteers need ladders to climb down on The Spectator.
View ArticleThe electrifying genius of Nikola Tesla
The pioneer of alternating current was far ahead of his time. But his eccentric behaviour, verging on madness, repelled those who should have backed him
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