D etached amusement might describe the reaction of many people to the sight of well-paid Lehman Brothers employees being escorted off the bank’s premises, carrying their...

capitalism is that I am spoilt for choice. My travels have taken me from Singapore to Luanda to Moscow to Rome and in the next few days I am off to the Gulf. Later in the year...

W hen Number 10 said that Gordon Brown’s leadership had not been discussed in the Cabinet on Tuesday morning, it sounded a bit odd. After all, every other gathering of Labour...

on for more than a year. It is remarkable that, in all that time, no political leader has had anything much to say about it. In the United States, neither John McCain nor Barack...

Monday This is ridiculous. I can’t be expected to understand the Labour leadership rules and off-balance-sheet arrangements. I’ve told Nigel it’s composite motions or...

Amid global financial turmoil, and on the eve of Labour’s conference, Fraser Nelson and Peter Hoskin reveal the true extent of the nation’s debt — equivalent to £26,100...

The interconnectedness and velocity of modern markets make this crash unique, says Martin Vander Weyer . But all is not lost yet: this is a time for cool heads and open minds O...

Prue Leith talks to John Abbott, author of a new book which argues that teenagers should be challenged, coaxed into apprenticeship and lured out of the classroom W hen I first...

Sarfraz Manzoor finds a sense of liberation as he travels to Durness in Scotland, slipping out of the clothes of his ethnicity, and exploring what it means to be British T his...

We grow up with kukris’ James Delingpole meets the Gurkha veterans seeking citizenship rights in the courts and says that, this time, the government has picked the wrong...

resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I n at the deep end. That’s how Intelligence Squared likes to kick off, and the first debate of the new season plunged straight into...

The party’s MPs are fatally conflicted over Gordon Brown’s leadership, says Rod Liddle . Their craven conduct reflects the awkward fact that they overwhelmingly chose him in...

capital markets D ubai’s transformation over the past few decades has been remarkable. What was once barren desert is now a site for some of the biggest companies and...

M y one regret at having retired from the National Health Service is that I no longer receive official circulars. I used for a time to derive a small secondary income from...

Sir: I was astonished to read in John Michell’s review of Michael X: A Life in Black and White (13 September) that I died 35 years ago. Michell states that I went to Trinidad...

Sir: Theodore Dalrymple’s good sense seems to have deserted him in glossing over the seriousness of the charges against Professors Meadow and Southall (‘In defence of David...

Sir: Dot Wordsworth wonders (Mind your language, 13 September) why foreign restaurants don’t consult a native speaker before publishing a menu in English. I have the same...

Sir: The disease and deformity described by William Clarke (Letters, 13 September) were most likely the result of chronic iodine deficiency common in southern Europe, especially...

Sir: Ross Clark’s complaint about Tyne and Wear Metro (Labour’s punishment freaks are hounding honest citizens, 6 September) is unfair and overstated. First, you can book...

Sir: Following Dot Wordsworth’s article on pronouncing surnames (Mind Your Language, 6 September), what about Pritchard — how many people with the name rhyme it with...

Sir: There is an even more obvious example of a long-reigning monarch than Emperor FrancisJoseph (Letters, 13 September). Louis XIV was King of France from 1643 to 1715. C.D.C....

O K. I’ll be honest. It’s been a bad fortnight, and I simply don’t understand any of the things you might expect me to be writing about. I don’t understand the fuss...

R ecently a Syrian lorry driver, making his cumbrous way across Turkey and Europe to Gibraltar, and following his satellite navigation system and online mapping service, found...

Martin Jacomb assesses the extent of the damage to the banking system so far — and the effectiveness of responses by central banks, regulators and lawmakers W ill it be short...

Caroline Moorehead R ESISTANCE : M EMOIRS OF O CCUPIED F RANCE by Agnès Humbert Bloomsbury, £14.99, pp. 370, ISBN9780747595977 ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 P...

Francis King CHICAGO by Alaa al-Aswani Fourth Estate, £14.99, pp.332 ISBN 97800007285181

from time to time ask me to recommend, not a guide, but a book that will give them the ‘feel’ of that country. Invariably my choice has been The Cairo Trilogy of Naguib...

Anita Brookner T HE B ELIEVERS by Zoë Heller Fig Tree, £16.99, pp. 308. ISBN 9780670916122 ✆ £13.59 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 665 Z oë Heller’s Z oë Heller’s Notes...

Adam Nicolson L EVIATHAN OR , T HE W HALE by Philip Hoare 4th Estate, £18.99, pp. 453, ISBN 9780007230136 ✆ £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 665 O n the beautiful jacket...

Jonathan Mirsky T HE H OUSE OF W ITTENGENSTEIN by Alexander Waugh Bloomsbury, £20, pp. 366, ISBN 9780747591856 ✆ £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655 I t has been famously...

Sebastian Smee W HAT I T ALK A BOUT W HEN I T ALK A BOUT R UNNING by Haruki Murakami Harvill/ Secker, £9.99, pp. 180, ISBN 98781846552205 ✆ £7.90 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429...

Robert Cooper S EA OF P OPPIES by Amitav Ghosh, read by Lyndham Gregory John Murray, £14.99, abridged 4 CDs, 4 1 / 2 hours E ver been called a ‘dung-brained gubberhead’ or...

‘R eviewing two books about Hemingway in The Spectator (19 August 2006) Caroline Moorehead asked: ‘How far is it right for biographers to write about subjects they so...

Henrietta Bredin talks to Peter Manning about taking risks and creating opportunities T here is an almost palpable forcefield of energy around Peter Manning. You expect a...

Andrew Lambirth Ancient Landscapes — Pastoral Visions: Samuel Palmer to the Ruralists Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, until 19 October B ath is nearly always a joy to visit,...

Alan Powers D oes nobody love Parliament Square? Days before the Mayoral election, Tristram Hunt called it a ‘terrible place: inaccessible, ugly, polluted and grotty’ in...

Lloyd Evans Turandot Hampstead Theatre Do You Know Where Your Daughter Is? Hackney Empire Eurobeat Novello W hy the long wait? Brecht completed his last play, Turandot , in...

Michael Tanner Don Giovanni Royal Opera House La Rondine Peacock Theatre T he first thing the Royal Opera needs to do with Don Giovanni , increasingly becoming Mozart’s most...

James Delingpole A Church of England official has issued an apology to the descendants of Charles Darwin for the Church’s ‘anti-evolutionary’ fervour towards his Origin...

Kate Chisholm T he BBC World Service’s drama department has been drastically cut back over the last few years and plays, squeezed out by news and current affairs, are...

Deborah Ross Tropic Thunder 15, Nationwide Unrelated 15, Selected Cinemas T ropic Thunder is an action comedy which stars Ben Stiller, is produced by Ben Stiller and is...

Ursula Buchan T he best enterprises look to the future but honour their past, which is why it was encouraging that the Royal Horticultural Society should last week have...

Robin Oakley W hat a glorious spectacle it was at Doncaster last Saturday. And no, I don’t mean Frankie Dettori launching himself at Sir Michael Stoute like an exuberant...

Taki Gstaad W alking up mountains is not only healthy, it gives a man time to think. In fact, climbing in solitude offers one marvellous inner adventures, with epiphanies being...

Jeremy Clarke I can feel a tremendous draught of change affecting me,’ said Dave, waggling his fingers at us as if playing a chest-high piano. ‘It’s the strongest, most...

Alex James A re you the driver?’ I asked. ‘No, I’m the owner,’ he replied, and I liked him immediately. It’s a lovely hotel, The Torre Maizza in Puglia, a walled...

Kimberley Quinn visits her mum, who deserted Beverly Hills for the French capital M y mother is a breed of American woman that’s fast disappearing. The...

Sarah Carr-Gomm AVIGNON A n expat in Australia was once asked what he missed most about England. ‘France,’ he replied. Reminded by this of what is on our doorstep, I took...

Lindy Woodhead GASCONY I must start by declaring an interest, as we are lucky enough to own a farmhouse in the Gers, one of the most beautiful départements in France, deep in...

Simon Heffer BIARRITZ W e were drawn to Biarritz for a series of odd reasons. We like France, but for some reason we had never been to that part. We like the French seaside,...

Emma Soames HOUSE - HUNTING I have always believed that there are some things in life, like five-bar gates and mothers’ races, that are better taken at the gallop. And buying...

Jonathan Ray TREEHOUSES M rs Ray and the boys — Ferdy, six, and Ludo, four — were desperate to go camping in Cornwall. I was equally desperate not to. Camping ain’t my...

Theo Fennell COTE D’AZUR T he words of Sandy Wilson’s song from his incomparably camp musical, The Boyfriend , don’t do justice to the archness of the place. Throw down...

new super-duper, hi-octane, interactive, dazzling and delicious Spectator Wine Club. Of course it has never been a club of any kind, with secret passwords, or club ties, and...

I t was the call I’d been dreading. Roger Cashmore, the Principal of Brasenose College, phoned to ask whether I would be willing to give a speech on behalf of the alumni at...

‘Not really,’ replied my husband when I asked if he thought it would be nice for us to have the Gibsons over for supper. If you knew the Gibsons (not their real name),...

Rory Sutherland I recently saw a photograph of a street vendor’s stall in Argentina. The menu reads simply Orange Juice $5. Jugo de Naranja $4. Here unsuspecting Anglophones...

a cheque, about five times the value that I would give to a mere family friend. I have now received a note from her which reads, ‘Thank you for the generous present. I hope...

recording for their home answerphone. Their four small children take turns to trill out lines like ‘No! Our parents aren’t at home’ and ‘Please leave a mess-ess-age!’...

recently made two extremely nice new friends while waiting outside the Albert Hall for return tickets for the Proms. It strikes me as a wonderful way to tune into people on...