R ussia’s actions in the past week should not have taken anyone by surprise. The fact that they did illustrates just how gravely in denial the free world now is about the...

Beijing Games was that an emergency meeting of the British Olympic Committee was convened in order to find an excuse for cancelling London 2012. There might have been even...

T here are several ways one might look at Gordon Brown’s leaked plan to send £150 to each of the seven-plus million families receiving child benefit. The first, and kindest, is...

Monday Copies of lads mags found lying around leaders’ office: 5 (v bad); pounds shed by Mr Pickles in name of Being The Change: 0 (v bad); inquiries about why we haven’t...

Philip Bobbitt says that the crisis reflects Russia’s determination to remain an old-fashioned nation state, dominating its region. Intellectual imagination will be needed to...

The case of Ben Collett, the footballer awarded £4.5 million for a tackle that ended his career, bodes ill for the game, says Rod Liddle . Blame the zeitgeist, not the judge I f...

Douglas Murray tours a country despondent about its presidential race and increasingly uncertain about Barack Obama. Yet the world still needs America’s strengths Chicago I n...

Do you pronounce the ‘l’ in falcon ? That civilised Kentish man Mr Eric Brown has sent me an entertaining newspaper cutting kept for 18 years. It is from the Times ’s ‘On this...

When A.S.H. Smyth was asked to accompany a friend on a 150-mile morris dance from London to Norwich, he could hardly say no. But morris dancing is a perilous pursuit ‘I ’m...

Liam Byrne — tipped for Cabinet promotion in the reshuffle — says that when Cameroons advocate ‘fraternity’ they are repackaging the Conservative case for the shrinking of the...

I still get letters about the Impossible Quiz which Simon Carter set for our Christmas special issue. An infernally complex blend of merciless logic, M.C. Escher’s art, and very...

Sir: I’m not sure if my colleague Bob MarshallAndrews is happy to be seen as some kind of showbiz personality (‘I’m not an ambassador for New Labour’, 9 August). However wrong...

Sir: Why does Fraser Nelson want to call it an Afghan-Pakistan war when it is not? (‘Don’t mention the Afghan-Pakistan war’, 26 July). Such labels are not only dangerous but...

Sir: Blair Worden in his review of The KitCat Club (Books, 2 August) has got his kits and cats a little mixed-up when he suggests that ‘kat’ is slang for a small fiddle. It is...

Sir: There has been progress in Cyprus since John Torode’s perceptive article (‘In Cyprus, warm words conceal dark intentions’, 2 willia_p_0206.07 5/29/07 2 August) was written....

A t the beginning of the year I devoted this column to words that don’t exist. By that I meant things for which there ought to be a word, but there isn’t. This is itself, of...

O ne of the great paradoxes, for most of us, is the hatred of work, and the need for it to fill what Dr Johnson called ‘the great vacancies of life’. We sigh for leisure, then...

I s President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia — who looks and sounds like a liberal-leaning modern technocrat — really his own man, or is he merely the stooge of his predecessor, the...

Jeremy Treglown S O I H AVE T HOUGHT OF Y OU : T HE L ETTERS OF P ENELOPE FITZGERALD edited by Terence Dooley Fourth Estate, £25, pp. 624 ISBN 9780007136407 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45...

George Osborne NIxoNLAND by Rick Perlstein Simon & Schuster, £25, pp. 880, ISBN 9780743243025 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I asked Henry Kissinger recently whether he...

Patrick Skene Catling D REAMING I RIS by John de Falbe Cuckoo Press, £11, pp. 278, ISBN 9780954268855 ✆ £8.80 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 L ove, whether originally mental or...

Rupert Christiansen HANDEL: T HE M AN AND H IS M uSIc by Jonathan Keates Bodley Head, £25, pp. 352, ISBN 9780224982020 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 S ince 1985, when...

Andrew Lambirth T HE G REAT B RATBY by Maurice Yacowar Middlesex University Press, £30, pp. 282, ISBN 9781904750260 ✆ £24 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 M aurice Yacowar,...

Jonathan Sumption A D AUGHTER ’ S L OVE : T HOMAS AND M ARGARET M ORE by John Guy Fourth Estate, £25, pp. 378, ISBN 9780007192311 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 S ir...

Andrew Lambirth on our continuing fascination with the Orient A lmost everywhere you look these days there’s an exhibition to do with China or the Far East. Tinselly young...

Scottish highs and lows Michael Tanner Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny Usher Hall Ysaye Quartet Queen’s Hall The Two Widows Edinburgh Festival Theatre T he Edinburgh...

Lost and found Roderick Conway Morris Josef Maria Auchentaller (1865-1945): A Secessionist on the Borders of the Empire Palazzo Attems-Petzenstein, Gorizia, Italy, until 30...

Late-night line-up Peter Phillips L ecturing on a course in Seattle has taken me away from London in recent days, and therefore from the excitement of Roger Wright’s first...

Pick of Edinburgh Lloyd Evans Dybbuk King’s Theatre Britt on Britt Assembly Rooms Surviving Spike Assembly Rooms P erhaps it should be the Inter-notional Festival. The posh...

Doctor Who in Elsinore Patrick Carnegy Hamlet Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon S tar casting at Stratford runs the risk of propelling a show into an orbit hard to track...

Eyes wide shut Kate Chisholm W hat a dilemma. The synchronised diving, with young Tom Daley taking part for Team GB, was due on at 7.30 on Monday morning, but that’s when I...

The fast and the furious Simon Hoggart I t’s three in the morning and a BBC executive is home in bed. Suddenly he wakes up, sweating. ‘What is it, darling?’ asks his...

Holiday reading Ursula Buchan I have always been reticent about recommending gardening books for anyone short of something to read on holiday. After all, gardening books are...

That’s not fair play Taki On board S/Y Bushido A s far as I’m concerned, the less said about the goings on in Beijing the better. I know, I know, I’ll be watching the judo and...

Last orders Jeremy Clarke U nder a low oak-beamed ceiling, three middle-aged men were perched on stools around the bar. One of these greeted me, walked around to the other...

Fat fish trouble Melissa Kite M y clownfish is clinically obese and agoraphobic. He has been refusing to come out of his bamboo log for three years now, except occasionally to...

Going cold turkey Janet de Botton A ugust. Holidays. Sun. Relaxation. Sleep. No bridge. Withdrawals. Hysteria. Aaaaaaaaaagh. I get August anxiety in early February so why do I...

Matthew Dennison experiments with self-catering on a royal scale F ew married men can match my boast of having been taught how to plump cushions by an interior decorator with a...

a must-visit destination for any lover of wild places S tep off the plane at Mount Pleasant International airport and you would be forgiven for thinking your flight had been...

A s a young man living in New York, I used to club together with four or five friends every summer and rent a house on Shelter Island. About 80 miles from New York, it is close...

Y ou can’t help feeling for Sergio Garcia. At Carnoustie last year, he lipped out on the last hole to throw away an Open title which had seemed his on the last day. And who was...