the inquiry into intelligence about Iraq, accused Mr Tony Blair’s administration of ‘bad government’, being unchecked by Parliament and free to bring in a ‘huge number...

I t is 12 years since the Queen stood up at dinner and coined the expression annus horribilis to describe the miseries of 1992. She probably didn’t even have in mind the fact...

I n Brisbane there was, and may yet be, an old-fashioned shopping arcade with a little tea shop on an upper gallery. There you could sit at a table with a cup of tea, a...

E aster comes unusually early this year, on 27 March, which is not quite without political significance. The Prime Minister will probably wait for a few days beyond the festival...

there is no more entertaining Christmas present than The Lord Chamberlain Regrets by Dominic Shellard and Steve Nicholson (British Library). It is a history of British theatre...

S ome months ago I wrote about the plans of a publisher loyal to Sinn Fein to launch a new daily newspaper in Northern Ireland. Part of me was inclined to cheer at the prospect...

W hen does a politician’s private life affect his fitness for office? Have the boundaries moved, offering our leaders more scope for secret gardens and untidy private...

Paganism is one of our fastest-growing religions. Mary Wakefield talks to a druid and finds out why witchcraft appeals to 21st-century Britain T he sky was already murky at 4...

I t’s a mild and tranquil December here in Florida, the headlines flickering with routine weirdness and depravity. Four years ago at this time, we were roiling in the acidbath...

There is an anti-American demon in the English soul, says Max Hastings , but it is not anti-American to be anti-Bush B ack in 1986, before Conrad Black appointed me editor of...

Andrew Gilligan on what the army stands to lose by adopting ‘Starbucks’ regiments W est Belfast in the autumn of 1982 was a bad place to be a British soldier. Booby-traps,...

Whatever their faults, says Mark Steyn , America’s Christian fundamentalists are a lot smarter than Eutopian secularists New Hampshire A s in previous years, Planned...

A weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade Gordon Brown does not usually receive support from this column but he deserves some congratulation on one...

Rod Liddle wonders whether only the Lib Dems have the courage to lead the fight against ID cards A ll of us, from time to time, experience crises of confidence — an...

It is fashionable to sneer at the Archbishop of Canterbury, but, says A.N. Wilson , he is a good man and profoundly Christian T here is an old Jewish proverb that if God came to...

First it was his bowels, then his heart: Andrew Gimson on the delicate procedures that followed a minor medical scare O n a Friday morning earlier this year I kept an...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft on how the death of his greyhound affected him more than he had expected, and perhaps more than it should have done S omebody once said that the English...

I felt, the other day, like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken. The nova in my telescope was not just a new word but a new tense. No doubt this...

The Reformation historian Diarmaid MacCulloch tells Theo Hobson that he loves the Anglican tradition, but no longer feels doctrinally committed to the Church I f someone gives...

By Peter Jones The art of Latin and Greek prose and verse composition has been declining over the last 40 years. Very few students do it at all these days. But those properly...

Norman Stone says the lesson of history is that the Turks can rescue Europe from its glossy sterility H err Professor Dr Wehler once wrote a very good article about the Poles in...

Mike Atherton on how Test cricketers and their wives spend Christmas in South Africa and Australia Port Elizabeth ‘I t is no more a place for them than a trench on the...

he is best who empathises most. That is why pop singers and British politicians are the best people in the world: they can’t see the slightest suffering without empathising...

18th and 19th centuries. Diaries and letters hardly mention it. Prince Albert’s trees and decorations took a long time to reach Derbyshire and would have been wasted on the...

Andrew Taylor I live in a city of the dead surrounded by a city of the living. The great cemetery of Kensal Vale is a privately owned metropolis of grass and stone, of trees...

W henever the subject of the EU comes up, someone is bound to compare it to the Roman empire. If the comparison relates to the beginning and subsequent development of that...

From Colin Armstrong Sir: Leo McKinstry’s knowledge of his native province as it is today seems somewhat superficial (‘Ulster is all right’, 4 December). It is not clear...

From Daniel Veen Sir: Bruce Anderson (Politics, 11 December) suggests that the quarter of a million males who are responsible for half of all crimes should have their details...

From Professor Ferdinand E. Banks Sir: The contribution by Nick Herbert on Swedish taxes (‘Gordon’s Swedish model’, 4 December) is interesting, but incomplete. To be...

From Dr John Radford Sir: In the first volume of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , Gibbon describes how Augustus deliberately and effectively replaced the institutions of...

From Paul Ryan Sir: Tom Sutcliffe takes ‘serious issue’ with a point I make in the introduction to Never Apologise: the Collected Writings of Lindsay Anderson (Books, 11...

From Norman Burton Sir: Edward Spalton (Letters, 11 December), along with no doubt many others, seems to ignore very conveniently the fact that Nicky Samengo-Turner broke the...

From John Fort Sir: It would be a pity if Mary Keen’s review of the book Gardens of the Roman World (Books, 4 December) were to put readers off going to see one of the most...

From Eric Potts Sir: Taki fawns continually on Hitler’s generals. If it is not Guderian, it is Rommel. If Rommel was such a smart military man, how is it that he skived off...

From A.N. Binder Sir: Bevis Hillier states that Spinoza pursued ‘his hobby of glass-engraving’ (Books, 11 December). Spinoza renounced most of his inheritance and earned...

From Manuel Escott Sir: I feel compelled to take issue with Rachel Johnson. In her enjoyable piece on the Diana Memorial Fountain (‘What a shower!’, 4 December) she...

I n the narrow courts between Cornhill and Lombard Street, where the old City lives on, I find the senior partner in his seasonal bad temper. He likes to get on with his work...

C hristmas is a time of goodwill and I must, as usual, suspend my dislikes for the season. What are they? The list lengthens every year. It now includes Scotch announcers on the...

Philip Hensher T HE B OOK OF S HADOWS by Don Paterson Picador, £12.99, pp. 208, ISBN0330431838 V £11.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 V ery few people have ever dared to...

Piers Paul Read T RUTH AND F ICTION IN THE D A V INCI C ODE by Bart D. Ehrman OUP, £11.99, pp. 207, ISBN 0195181409 ✆ £10.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 S hortly before...

William Boyd A T RAGIC H ONESTY by Blake Bailey Methuen, £25, pp. 671, ISBN 0413774325 ✆ £23 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 ‘M ostly we authors repeat our selves,’...

Christopher Woodward T HE L EGEND OF N APOLEON by Sudhir Hazareesingh Granta, £20, pp. 336, ISBN 18620076677 ✆ £18 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 N APOLEON AND THE BRITISH...

Digby Anderson T HE F IVE B OOKS OF M OSES : A T RANSLATION WITH C OMMENTARY by Robert Alter W. W. Norton, £34, pp. 1064, ISBN 0393019551 T he Pentateuch belongs to all sorts...

Michael Beloff T HE G RAND S LAM by Mark Frost Time Warner, £20, pp. 431, ISBN 0316726915 ✆ £18 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 B EN H OGAN by James Dodson Aurum, £18.99,...

Jane Rye H OCKNEY ’ S P ICTURES by David Hockney Thames & Hudson, £19.95, pp. 368, ISBN 0500093148 ✆ £17.95 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 D avid Hockney is a conjuror...

Justin Marozzi G ERTRUDE B ELL by H. V. F. Winstone Barzan Publishing, £19.95, pp. 483, ISBN 0954772806 ✆ £17.95 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 L ife in Iraq may not be...

Juliet Townsend T HE L ETTERS OF R UDYARD K IPLING : V OLUME V, 1920-1930, V OLUME VI, 1931-36 edited by Thomas Pinney Palgrave/Macmillan, £55 each, Volume V, pp. 584, Volume...

Stephen Abell C OLLECTED N OVELS , V OLUME I by Paul Auster Faber, £25, pp. 659, ISBN 0671224490 ✆ £23 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 C ITY OF G LASS by Paul Auster,...

I’m here in the hotel By the sea With nothing to do. But how do you do that nothing? I never did it before. Tell me how you begin and what’s involved? My heart isn’t in...

D. J. Taylor S ELECTED S TORIES by Julian Maclaren-Ross Dewi Lewis Publishing, £9.99, pp. 250, ISBN 1904587178 C OLLECTED M EMOIRS by Julian Maclaren-Ross Black Spring Press,...

But really, is it the same place, that Cosy old-fashioned bistrot we used to eat in Years ago, so many years, one forgets How many. But surely it was right here. And surely...

Digby Durrant B AD D IRT by Annie Proulx Fourth Estate, £12.99, pp. 219, ISBN 000719691 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 M any very strange things apparently happen...

David Ekserdjian T his year’s crop of art books for Christmas is the usual mixed bunch, and if they have anything in common, it is their general lack of festive associations....

Kate Chisholm M ISS B ROCKLEHURST ON THE N ILE : D IARY OF A V ICTORIAN T RAVELLER IN E GYPT Millrace, £14.95, pp. 119, ISBN 1902173147 M ACC AND O THER I SLANDS by Graham...

Alberto Manguel I TALIAN F EVER by Valerie Martin Weidenfeld, £12.99, pp. 272, ISBN 0297848860 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 H enry James was in two minds about...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft R EGGIE : T HE L IFE OF R EGINALD MAUDLING by Lewis Baston Sutton, £25, pp. 320, ISBN 0750929243 ✆ £23 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 I n November...

How many angels knew who Hamlet was When they were summoned by Horatio? They probably showed up only because The roster said it was their turn to go. Another day, another Dane....

In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in stained glass, writes Andrew Lambirth C ollecting stained glass seems to have fallen somewhat from fashion. In the...

Toby Young F or the past three months I’ve been on sabbatical as The Spectator ’s drama critic because I’ve been appearing as myself in a one-man show at the Arts...

Henrietta Bredin T here have been times, shaming though it is to admit, when my thoughts have wandered during an opera performance. Perhaps even more shamingly, those...

Robin Holloway A s if to answer my recent complaints (Arts, 30 October) concerning the dumb deserts of Radio Three between the end of the early-evening concert and the...

Lloyd Evans Playboy of the West Indies Tricycle Old King Cole Cochrane Aladdin Hackney Empire P hilip Larkin stormed out. ‘I’ve never seen such stupid balls,’ he wrote...

Giannandrea Poesio Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake Sadler’s Wells Theatre F or 100 years, ballet has been represented by the image of a ballerina with a feathered headdress and...

Mark Steyn ’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house/ Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. A t which point, Sylvester the cat looks up from his...

New Year’s Eve is always the most disappointing night of the year, leaving you dreading the year to come more and more with every mumbled chorus of ‘Auld Lang Syne’....

Michael Tanner Don Pasquale Royal Opera House One Touch of Venus Opera North, Leeds T here is not a lot you can do with Donizetti’s Don Pasquale , and possibly the best...

Michael Vestey N o time is right to announce job losses, but picking just before Christmas seems to be favoured by many companies. One can’t help wondering if there’s sound...

Simon Hoggart T he Sex Inspectors (Channel 4, Tuesday) is a wonderfully old-fashioned show. It resembles those Guides to Married Love that brides would find in their honeymoon...

Simon Courtauld W e are in danger of losing our eels. To many people this may be of little interest, but it is a serious matter. The vast numbers of baby eels (elvers) which...

Alan Judd Y ears ago, when the Times was a newspaper for grown-ups, it was said to have published a letter illustrative of our misuse of statistics. This was to the effect that...

Robin Oakley F or Dean Gallagher, Christmas came early. Two years ago, the rider stepped into the November night outside the Jockey Club, banned from riding for 18 months (at...

Taki O f course it was a dream. It had to be. Things like that just don’t happen. No way. But my eyes were open when I saw it, so how could I have been dreaming? I kept them...

Jeremy Clarke I knew I wasn’t going to like Mr Troy, his biology teacher. My boy had told me Mr Troy liked progressive jazz. Just as there is an immutable psychic law that...

Aidan Hartley Laikipia W hen I saw the Chief in his Land Cruiser filled with hangers-on bouncing towards me through the bush I knew he was after his Christmas fatted lamb. It...

Petronella Wyatt P eople ask me why I spend Christmas in South Africa. Why don’t I remain in England and have a proper British Christmas? Or, why don’t I go to Hungary,...

FRANK KEATING P ublic tears by the torrent gauge performance these days — at either end of the scale — and for a while yet 2004 will be lodged in British memories for both...

appearing in a one-man show in the West End. Not surprisingly, several of my colleagues have been less than generous about my performance. One in particular, a man I’ve always...

to spend a fortune on clothes so as to constantly ring the changes. I am also the eldest of four and my siblings have gleaned the erroneous impression that all telly presenters...

of hierarchical address between celebrities, people who might not have met but do still ‘know’ one another from the television? In the street it is not a problem — once I...

much vintage clothing I have often ask if they can borrow something. My problem is that because people know I have acquired most of it for tiny amounts of money in thrift shops...

often have to talk to politicians. Some of them are very unpleasant to me and it can be most hurtful. I am a rather timid person who dislikes confrontation. How should one deal...