Snobbery with violence
The ginger-haired man in the three-piece suit had been standing at the bar all night, ordering gin and tonics in a proprietorial…
From Fettes with love
Ian Fleming went to Eton in the autumn of 1921 and left, aged 17, in 1926 for a crammer in…
Screen princess
Sarah Gadon has been in no fewer than three David Cronenberg films. She was cast in A Dangerous Method, his…
To write a bestseller I had to become a woman
It’s remarkable the efforts some authors will make in order to achieve literary fame. Take the American writer James Frey.…
Glass distinction
Was it the Russians? The Saudis? Or Elton John, who once received a florist’s bill for £293,000? Someone’s to blame…
Wings of desire
When Lewis Carroll created Alice’s wonderland, he sent his diminutive heroine down rabbit holes and through looking glasses and in…
Turn on, tune in, cash out
I’m what you call a Sixties person. I still believe in sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, and radical…
The Wish List
Above. Clockwise from left: Sea urchin spine necklace, £525, Patrick Mavros; Daisy Tryst ring, £21,500, Theo Fennell; Chrysoprase Amulette de Cartier,…
Seeing the light
‘Everything is going to be alright’. Walking my children to nursery along east London’s then ungentrified Lower Clapton Road, I…
Future Shop
Believe it or not, the concept of the future is a recent phenomenon. Sure, the past offers up one or…
What shall we tell Oscar?
It’s close to midnight on a Saturday evening in September at the Hudson hotel in Manhattan and spirits at the…
Shelf defence
You’d be forgiven for thinking that bookshops only ever close down. More than 500 have shut since 2005, leaving fewer…
Please look after this bear
You adapted very well to life in London — were you concerned about how you might get on working in…
The Pick-up artists
You know how it is. You’re on holiday in the south of France, soaking up the rays and the fizz,…
Driven by instinct
I first discovered Moravec’s Paradox when watching Brief Encounter on television. I was watching the film with my daughter, who…
Inside man
Fera, the restaurant that opened at Claridge’s this spring, looks at first glance like a space untouched since the 1930s:…
Ding Dong!
In the 21st-century world of hand-held infotainment devices which pack more computing power than the space rockets of yore, the…
Patron Saints
The Spanish Steps; the Trevi fountain; the old Cinecittà studios on the outskirts of Rome; 12 galleries of the Uffizi; Tintoretto frescoes…
Cows and clockwork
In a cosy attic above Junod, Lausanne’s oldest watch shop, there’s a museum which charts the story of Switzerland’s obsessive…
The Wish List
Clockwise from top: Zenith El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th Tribute to Felix Baumgartner, £6,500; Romain Gauthier 950 Platinum Ruthenium…
Smoke ring
The nominees for Spectator Cigar Smoker of the Year 2014 were: Ricky Gervais, Ralph Fiennes, Laurence Fishburne, Boris Becker, Jeremy…
Batteries Included
Boris, like Churchill, is a fountain of big ideas, some good, some not so good, some plain bonkers. Banning diesel…
Jane Again
It took all of two minutes of deep thought — well, of thought — to answer the question put to…
Crash Course
The question came to me the other week when I read about a youngish graduate in London living in a…
