Last week I travelled to Calais. There I met a 14-year-old boy from Syria who was in a wheelchair. He had broken both legs trying to make it to Britain, and was alone. He was not much older than my children, but had already suffered more misery and experienced more danger than any of us could imagine.
Even for the most dedicated democrats, the most devoted democratic socialist, the most obsessive political anorak, the Labour leadership election provides ample proof that one can have too much of a good thing.
The ugly word “staycation” was coined to describe the trend towards people staying at home during their vacation – going out for day trips, perhaps, but using their home as their base. There is as yet no word to describe the growing trend for people to do pretty much the reverse: going away on holiday but blending in some work – maybe quite a lot of it – into their holiday time. For many, indeed for many away this month, the frontier between work and leisure has become much more blurred. Each blends into the other... Читать дальше...
The philosopher Robert Rowland Smith could be heard on Radio 4’s Four Thought last week propounding a highly original thesis about the Western world’s changing intellectual climate. “The age of ideas” was coming to a close, he declared, and in its place there could be glimpsed the first stirrings of something called “the age of intuition”.
The Edinburgh Fringe is keeping up its reputation for the hard-hitting and the avant-garde with an innovation that will strike fear into the hearts of critics. (And yes, they do have hearts, most of them.) The Ham Fist award aims to embarrass reviewers who spectacularly get the wrong end of the stick. It’s paid for by an anonymous comedian, and run by the website Fringepig, famous (among critics) for its often brutal reviews of reviewers.
Tom Hayes was, no doubt about it, something of an oddball. Every office has one. Usually it’s a bloke: someone good at his job, perhaps, and so grudgingly tolerated, but never quite one of the lads.
How long could you live without your smartphone? A week? No chance. A day? Oh God. An hour? Well OK, if I must. Most of us know that sinking feel of having left our phone at home, specifically the panic that comes with wondering, “What if the childminder calls?” or “How will I Instagram my lunch?”
A sobering contrast lies at the heart of US elections. Their unmatched entertainment value masks the ruthlessness, the dirty tricks, and the downright subversion of democracy sometimes employed to win them. And rarely has the contrast been more vividly on display than last Thursday, 6 August.
I’ve tried as hard as I can but … I really can’t hack festivals. I just don’t think they’re for me. Maybe it’s because I dress like an idiot for work, so the idea of wandering around the gardens of some stately home disguised as a hipster lobster is less appealing to me than the average middle-class dad on a weekend off? Maybe I’m just a killjoy? It’s certainly true that I wander around these things when forced to be there with a rain cloud hanging over my head ... a full-time festival grump.
Here is the opening of a news story published on Monday: “When Birmingham’s multimillion-pound new library announced it was being forced to slash its hours because of budget cuts less than two years after opening, the humiliation looked like it might turn the architectural landmark into an expensive white elephant.”
Playwright Lee Hall is best known for Billy Elliot, the inspirational, heart-warming film and musical about a boy who wants to be a ballet dancer and who overcomes the odds to achieve his dream. Now, Hall has turned his attention to the story of a Scottish Catholic schoolgirl choir, travelling to Edinburgh to compete in a singing competition. Hankies at the ready for the big emotional numbers, right?
Benedict Cumberbatch is seen drenched in sweat with his eyes glittering as he wields a dagger high above his head as Hamlet.
State-of-the-art forensic technology from South Africa has been used to try and unravel the mystery of what was smoked in tobacco pipes found in the Stratford-upon-Avon garden of William Shakespeare.
When everybody is smiling, who needs a clown? It had – before the general election – been one of Boris Johnson’s many jobs to fluff up Conservative morale; tickling a party conference here, roaring through a meet-and-greet there. Now his services are less in demand. If Tories want cheering up, all they need to do is reflect on their majority, or glance at the Labour leadership contest.
The drawn-out demise of the children’s charity Kids Company has made for uncomfortable viewing, with claims of mismanagement followed by allegations that sexual impropriety on its premises was ignored.
As I clanked back from Westfield Stratford City hauling two Boots carrier bags full of dyes, varnishes and toxic-when-inhaled sprays which make me the natural beauty I am, the thought tiptoed across my mind: "I wonder if Caitlyn Jenner is tired of being a woman yet?" This isn't to make light of the decades the athlete-turned-reality-TV star spent unhappy as a man – more that I own that DVF leopard-print frock she "casually" threw on to go shopping in Manhattan. There would have been nothing "casual" about the process. Читать дальше...
I went to dinner with friends a few weeks ago, a belated birthday do, and one of the party asked if he could add an extra person to the table. Turns out the extra person was the trois in my friend's new ménage.
Reader Peter Cammidge writes in with his own tale of woe about the long-running problems with BT's caller display charges.
Creating a restaurant chain takes time and patience. The latest figures from The Fulham Shore demonstrate there is no short-cut to catering success. From a standing start four years ago, the company has developed into one of the most promising players in the bitterly competitive but still thriving eating-out business.
My ability to either "spend" or "save" will be deficient to the tune of £100 next month, due to the exemplary professionalism of Her Majesty's Plod. Well, I say "exemplary professionalism", but if I were inclined to be a touch picky of the nit, I could just as well say that surely the Met has better things to do than to penalise me for a slight oversight in my vehicular documentation.
Q. I flew with Iberia from Gatwick to Almeria in April. My luggage was lost at Madrid-Barajas airport. It was delivered next day, but my suitcase was badly damaged. I was given a form to complete, together with details of where to send it. An Iberia official, on the phone, told me to buy a new suitcase, with a maximum price of €150 (£105).
There's been an explosion in family fraud as Britain's older people are being preyed on by younger relatives, warns KPMG. The accountancy firm's latest Fraud Barometer reveals that the value of major scams rose by a fifth in the first half of this year to £385m.
Have I got the right current account?
Several years ago Witan Investment Trust suffered from all sorts of problems, some of which are now assailing Alliance Trust, where poor returns have left the board prey to activist investors. Performance at Witan wasn't good, the discount had widened significantly, and there was a general feeling the trust had seen better days.