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Nov 12, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Catriona Olding |Nicholas Farrell |Frances Wilson |Amber Duke
ProvenceMy older, adopted sister came to stay. She suffers from peripheral neuropathy secondary to diabetes and is registered disabled. It’s a worry watching her negotiate the cliff path and the twelve stone steps to the front door with her stick, but she adores it here. Since reversing her insulin-dependent diabetes with an extreme fasting keto diet, her mobility has improved and she no longer uses a mobility scooter.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Frances Wilson |Nicholas Farrell |Amber Duke |Jonathan Sumption
Fresh out of Hollywood High, Eve Babitz introduced herself to Joseph Heller: “Dear Joseph Heller, I am a stacked eighteen-year-old blonde on Sunset Boulevard. I am also a writer.” It was 1960, and while her writing was the sheerest bliss, “Eve Bah-Bitz with the Great Big Tits,” as she was known, was herself a work of art.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Nicholas Farrell |Frances Wilson |Amber Duke |Nigel Jones
Dante’s Beach, RavennaIt is strange how events elide and create a pattern whose significance remains elusive. I had just returned from a raid under the cover of the night on a huge field near our house a mile from the sea.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Alexander Larman |Byron’s Women |Travis Elborough |Frances Wilson
“Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.” So begins Susanna Clarke’s modern masterpiece Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, first published two decades ago and now regarded, rightly, as the greatest work of British fantasy literature since the Gormenghast novels.
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Apr 24, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Thomas W. Hodgkinson |Francis Pike |Frances Wilson |LifeThe tradition
The world’s greatest scientific building recently celebrated its 225th birthday. In 1799, a group of natural philosophers (the word “scientist” hadn’t been invented) founded the Royal Institution (RI) in London.
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Apr 24, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Francis Pike |Frances Wilson |Svitlana Morenets |Jawad Iqbal
Voting in India’s national elections started last Friday. It will take six weeks to complete, which is less of a surprise when one considers that in a population of 1.4 billion people there are 969 million voters, 2,600 political parties, twenty-eight states and 780 languages. It is a logistical task of dazzling scale, not only for India’s election commission but also for its political leaders.
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Apr 23, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Frances Wilson |Svitlana Morenets |Jawad Iqbal |Susannah Heschel
The hypochondriac is the butt of jokes. Even his butt is the butt of jokes. A story doing the rounds in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries concerned a Parisian glassmaker who, believing himself to be also made of glass, fastened a cushion to his buttocks in case they broke when he sat down.
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Dec 15, 2023 | 
thespectator.com | Royals Harry |Ericka Andersen |Niall Ferguson |Frances Wilson
At last, official confirmation that Harry and Meghan are the world’s most unpopular couple — by their local newspaper, no less. This month, the Hollywood Reporter has ranked Harry and Meghan among its biggest losers of the year.
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Dec 15, 2023 | 
thespectator.com | Ericka Andersen |Niall Ferguson |Frances Wilson |Amber Athey
Conservative commentator Guy Benson and his husband recently announced the arrival of a new baby, born via surrogate. Controversy erupted when they tweeted out the news. Last year, when Dave Rubin, another conservative commentator, and his husband announced they would have two surrogate babies, there was a similar flare-up.
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Dec 14, 2023 | 
thespectator.com | Frances Wilson |Niall Ferguson |Amber Athey |Ben Domenech
Emperor of Rome? Is there a typo in the title? Mary Beard’s latest book is about not one but thirty Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar (assassinated 44 BCE) to Alexander Severus (assassinated 235 CE), so why the singular?
