Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2025 i The Oldie

Donna Tartt. It’s quite a name. She’s quite a lady. American, petite (five foot tall), fun and absurdly young for 61, she became famous when she published her first novel, The Secret History, in 1992. Her third, The Goldfinch, won her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014. She spends around ten years working on each book. I find her look irresistible: dark hair, near central parting, boyish clothes. (She has featured on the Vanity Fair international ‘best-dressed’ list.). I find her company compelling. Given that she is regularly described as a ‘literary genius’ and ‘notorious recluse’, I am lucky to know her. I am luckier still because, between us, we have a special arrangement. When we meet, we only say three words to each other: ‘I love you.’ Nothing…

WHAT IS a bop? A bop is a sexually promiscuous young woman. It is not to be confused with bop as in ‘catchy song’, nor bop as in ‘embarrassing Oxbridge disco’, nor the avant-garde jazz style pioneered by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the 1940s. If only. No, this kind of bop is an acronym for ‘baddie on point’. It refers to women who use their bodies to make money online. The opportunities to do so have hugely increased owing to online platforms such as OnlyFans, which allows ‘creators’ to charge customers for exclusive ‘content’. In other words, it empowers anyone with an internet connection to become a freelance pornographer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Apparently. OnlyFans creators often credit the site with transforming their personal finances.…

Eighty years have passed since the end of the Second World War – yet we writers can’t keep our hands off it. Why? Because there always seems to be something new to say. Let me flash back to the late 1990s, when my writing partner, Laurence Marks, and I were mere whippersnappers (though I didn’t actually snap my whipper until years later, chasing a tennis ball). Laurence was reading Alan Bullock’s biography of Hitler, A Study in Tyranny; he does enjoy a proper book. Bullock recounted how Adolf was the anxious child of a brutish father and an abused mother. The latter consulted their family doctor for ‘a cure’ for the boy’s nightmares. Dr Bloch explained that that sort of thing was beyond him. However, a new clinic had opened…

Many of the letters written to my parents when I was born took the predictable line: ‘Welcome to the newest member of the firm.’ My father was senior partner of Vickers, da Costa, a good stockbroking firm in the City in the days before boom and bust. It had been founded by my grandfather in 1917, when the German members were evicted from the Stock Exchange as aliens. One of his partners was Jack Churchill. Winston was a client. After the Second World War, my father took it on. He was one of the first to advance into the Japanese market and was once asked if he was not nervous about having his money invested in Japan. He replied that he liked living in London with his money invested in…

Feminists dislike the corset, but you would be hard-pressed to find another item of clothing with the same potential for dramatic enhancement of your look. Yes, there are health risks attached to being hardly able to breathe for the sake of looking good. And the corset has historic cultural links with misogyny and oppression. In the days of Victorian ‘fainting culture’, when frailty was considered a hallmark of beauty, it was deemed feminine and appropriate, even, for young women to collapse – ideally onto a chaise longue – in direct response to being over-tightly corseted. The chaise longue had its heyday in the 1890s, offering a conveniently shaped soft landing for the multiple fainters at parties. Fainting certainly ensured that the woman became the centre of attention, something she often…

How has our marriage survived these 37 years? On the face of it, Mary and I have little in common. She likes parties, spending money and promoting village harmony, whereas I like gardening, living off ‘rations’ and maintaining petty feuds. Perhaps it is because we are utterly co-dependent. I don’t own a mobile phone or a computer – so Mary manages the business side of things. I drive, cook, buttle and do various menial jobs such as splitting logs and relocating errant slugs who have breached the porous battlements of our cottage. Mary bought me a mobile phone after an unfortunate incident in which she was left stranded outside Waitrose for 25 minutes, laden with seven bulging bags for life. The misunderstanding had arisen from her mistaken belief that I…

Hoarding has a bad name in the 21st century, which prizes ‘de-cluttering’ and minimalism over collecting and keeping. But archaeologists and historians have good reason to thank the hoarders. Take the recent revelation of the largest collection of Iron Age metalwork ever discovered in the UK, the Melsonby Hoard. This ancient breaker’s yard of wagons and chariots, harnesses for at least 14 horses, ceremonial spears, ornate cauldrons, an iron mirror and ‘personal adornments’ seems to have been deliberately destroyed, for reasons that may never become clear. It was buried more than 2,000 years ago in the kingdom of the Brigantes, in North Yorkshire. The Brigantes’ most famous figure was Queen Cartimandua. Tacitus said she was ‘seen’ to have shored up her position by betraying Caratacus to the Romans, in 51…

The Rev Eleanor Launders-Brown and the Rev Lady Sentamu conducted the memorial service at York Minster for James Fawcett. James Fawcett was the seventh-generation head of the Yorkshire family business Thomas Fawcett & Sons, maltsters and malt roasters, which has served the brewing industry since 1809. The business almost doubled in size under his control and today works with many brewers across Britain, America, Australia and New Zealand. Lara Fawcett, his widow and sister of Bear Grylls, TV presenter and former Chief Scout, led the congregation. The Rev Lady Sentamu, wife of Lord Sentamu, former Archbishop of York, said in her address, ‘There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves. But our sadness is not one of loss but of parting from the one we love –…

There was great excitement in our Kent cottage 80 years ago, on 8th May 1945, with news of victory over the wireless. My mother and father, who were barely on speaking terms, decided there had to be some sort of family celebration. But what? Feasting on the powdered egg that rationing allowed was clearly not enough. They decided against a drive or train ride to London, a far-off place in those days. Besides, we might have got caught up in the throngs filling the streets. At five, a nervous small boy, I might go missing in the collective merriment. So we decided to find our merriment in Tunbridge Wells, where my father had his estate agency. Tunbridge Wells was as merry as Tunbridge Wells could get. The odd firework went…

Lady Pamela Berry: Passion, Politics and Power By Harriet Cullen Unicorn £25 I vividly remember the first time I saw Pamela Berry (1914-82). It was around the time of the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 – when I was 13. She and her husband had come to look over my parents’ house in Buckinghamshire. She was wearing blue tweed with a gleam of white; a hat, perhaps; gloves, I’m sure. As illustrated on this book’s cover portrait, the freshly set hair framed severe brows above dark, evaluating, sussing-out eyes. And, while her famed female wiles were even then evident, she had an aura of some young warlord, determined on action and victory; not niceties or affection. The house got short shrift. Lady Pamela did not warm to our mellow William and…

Irascible: The Combative Life of Douglas Cooper, Collector and Friend of Picasso By Adrian Clark and Richard Calvocoressi Yale University Press £45 Douglas Cooper (1911-84), if he is remembered at all outside the world of art, owes his immortality to John Richardson’s immensely entertaining but by no means wholly reliable The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Picasso, Provence and Douglas Cooper (1999). Richardson (1924-2019) spent the years from 1949 to 1960 as Cooper’s trophy boyfriend – from 1952 on in the Château de Castille in the south of France – but their parting was by no means a friendly one. In his memoir, Richardson wreaked a terrible revenge on his former benefactor, whom he presents as a monstre sacré, though perhaps unwittingly his self-portrait does not leave him covered in glory either. In…

Consumer helplines We have all drunk the ghastly cocktail of adrenalin, panic and rage when the snaking luggage conveyor belt ceases to snake – and all hope is extinguished. Your suitcase has failed to arrive – as mine did after a recent United Airlines flight from New York to Paris. There is nobody on hand to help – the airline presumably hoping that, being left to stew for a while, you will find some Zen. After all, nobody has died, there is trouble the world over, and all that’s happened to you is a lost case. Very true. Consumer let-downs come in many shapes and forms. But it’s not only the guilty company in the dock: you too are being tested each time you battle to speak to someone –…

My Luddite leanings, as I had often been forewarned by The Oldie’s Matthew Webster, finally wreaked havoc. My computer died. So, for this column, I had only pencilled jottings in a notebook – covered in William Morris’s Strawberry Thief, bought in the V&A gift shop. My study is adorned with Morris’s most recognisable wallpaper, Willow – as seen chez Giles and Mary on Gogglebox. But when ‘Morris Mania: How Britain’s g reatest designer went viral’ was shoehorned into the arts end of the Today programme, how did we all feel? A bit queasy. Hadrian Garrard, curator of the Morris Museum at Walthamstow, noted how infinitely reproducible WM designs have become, on phone cases, shower curtains, wellies, trowels, Nike trainers and collapsible walking sticks. Ubiquitous Morris is today so commercial –…

FAST TRACKS After one marathon session, and wearing only his underpants, he ended up banging his head repeatedly on his hotel-room floor, wailing, ‘I can’t finish this song!’ Leonard Cohen took five years to write his masterpiece, ‘Hallelujah’. He tinkered with it endlessly, chiselling at its intricate rhymes and phrases. He was a devout believer in painstaking craft and meticulous polish. But he was haunted by the fact that others could knock out their finest work in seconds. When Bob Dylan wondered how long ‘Hallelujah’ had taken him, Cohen couldn’t bear to tell the truth and said, ‘Two years.’ He asked about one of Bob’s and got a mortifying response: ‘Fifteen minutes.’ You can only hope he never heard about Keith Richards and ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ (see Chris…

COURGETTES I expect to have a better crop of courgettes this summer. Owing to the wet weather of last year, very few grew beyond a few inches before the ends became soft; and only one matured to marrow size. Marrows and courgettes, also known as zucchini, are varieties of summer squash, an American term embracing similar vegetables of different shapes and colours. They are all of the same family as cucumbers. The curious, scallop-shaped pattypan is known as a summer squash and becoming more popular. I sowed some courgette seeds in the greenhouse in the last week of March – one seed to each pot, planted on edge to avoid the risk of the seed’s rotting if it’s placed flat in the compost. There is a green ridged variety, Romanesco,…

VIVA ESPAŇA! I have always had a soft spot for Rioja. As an impecunious student in the early 1980s, I found the region’s reds always seemed to offer great value, especially the younger – crianza – wines, with bags of cherry-like Tempranillo fruit and soft tannins. Navajas was a particular favourite. At around a tenner (£9.95 from the Wine Society), it is still a bargain. More recently, I have been lucky enough to visit some of the grander bodegas – Marqués de Murrieta, La Rioja Alta, López de Heredia, Marqués de Riscal, to name but a few. I sampled some of their venerable Reserva and Gran Reserva wines, savouring the complexity that comes from long years in both barrel and bottle. There was one style of Rioja about which I…

Throughout this country, there are thousands, if not millions, of very small websites that serve local communities, sports clubs, model-train enthusiasts and the like. They are often operated by volunteers as a service or a pastime. I run a couple myself: one for a small charity, and one as a repository for village information, minutes of meetings and so on. Since 17th March, these (and all other websites in the UK) have become subject to the Online Safety Act (OSA), which has some fairly terrifying teeth. The websites especially at risk are those that allow users to post unmoderated comments or discussions. Without the website-owner’s noticing, these can be used for nefarious purposes – even criminal activity – and could expose children to harm. Webwatch For my latest tips and…

In the lockdown in early May, five years ago, I chatted with a patrolling Hyde Park policeman as we stood by the reedbed near the Serpentine Lido. The summer migration of birds from Africa was at its height. We were listening to the newly arrived reed warblers and watching swallows, martins and swifts hawking for insects over the water beyond. Having failed to spot a sand martin, the policeman went on his way, with the parting advice that he had seen a reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) in the reedbed and hoped I would do the same. I later did, to my delight. It was a male, conspicuous for its black-and-white head in the breeding season. When the breeding season is over, the black disappears, the white collar diminishes and the…

Declarer was very proud of his avoidance technique on this month’s deal, kindly shown to me by Shireen Mohandes of RealBridge. Plan the play in 4 ♠ on ♦ K lead. Dealer South Neither Vunerable The bidding (1) Very marginal. Declarer won the ace of diamonds, drew trumps in two rounds finishing in hand, then led up his second diamond. West naturally hopped up with the queen and switched to a heart. If declarer had finessed, he would have gone two down, East winning the king and promptly switching to the queen of clubs to secure three tricks in the suit, with declarer’s king squashed. However, declarer did not need to risk the heart finesse – in fact his game was now 100-per-cent secure, regardless of the position of the…

It was supposedly spring when I set out for a walk to an absent monument. The only seasonal hint was a lark, singing. Otherwise, the cold westerly and spitting rain gave it the flavour of a generic winter’s day. Emperor Hadrian knew exactly where to begin his wall in 122AD, at the northern edge of his kingdom: along the natural ridge of the Whin Sill. Much of the time, these pointy cliffs running through Northumberland are a superb natural fortification. The implausibly neat and square Roman stone blocks are just the cherry on top. I’m a fair-weather walker. Most of us who walk for pleasure are – it makes sense to pick and choose our conditions. But I was surprised to find it was so enjoyable to be out in…

Sister's ugly behaviour Q My sister is in her mid-60s; I am 77. She clearly has mental-health problems, topped off with what can only be described as intermittent alcoholism. When sober, she is reclusive and unpredictable, other than loving dogs and hating her husband. When drunk, she’s aggressive and often violent. She has avoided prosecution, but only just. She will phone me when drunk, initially to slander her husband, inevitably leading to abusing me and my family. He avoids her by going out every night and fishing most weekends. He is a saint. Recently, I underwent an operation that necessitated taking very strong painkillers. Knowing I was likely to be in considerable discomfort, I asked her not to call me for a few days. The day after my operation, she…

Chris Jagger (p16) is a musician. In this issue, he talks to his brother, Mick, about (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, which came out 60 years ago. His memoir, Talking to Myself, is out now. Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran (p18) are two of our greatest screenwriters. They wrote Shine On Harvey Moon, The New Statesman, Birds of a Feather and Goodnight Sweetheart. Nicky Haslam (p57) is a writer, singer and interior designer. He performs songs by his friend Cole Porter. He created the Common Things tea towel and wrote Redeeming Features: A Memoir. Annabel Venning (p82) is author of To War With the Walkers: One Family’s Extraordinary Story of the Second World War. She writes for the Daily Mail and many other publications.…

To the best of my knowledge, which in this sphere as in most others flirts coquettishly with the non-existent, I hold a prized academic record. Unless it has since been sat by a terrapin, a JCB digger or a patient in early recovery from a full-frontal lobotomy, my performance in the 1987 Solicitors’ Final Examination remains the worst in Law Society history. Although one takes pride in this, I mention it not to brag, but to make a point. Whatever follows will inevitably be inaccurate, if not active drivel, in any technical legal sense. Nonetheless, I ask the question: why in the name of all the saints have 15 people been charged under Section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005 for betting on the date of the 2024 general election?…

I am a modern British soldier, yet daily I feel the weight of a war that ended 80 years ago. Not in traditions, uniform, or battle-honours, although they are an important connection to our heritage. Nor in our weapons and equipment, even if many would be recognisable to Monty’s men. It is in something deeper – our purpose, instincts and identity. The Second World War is still with us every day; not as history, but as a lodestone, its pull both guiding light and drag anchor. This may appear a contradiction; it is in fact a continuity. While I didn’t join the Army to re-fight the battles of 1939-45, as a child born in 1973 I believe the war shaped my imagination of service. Nearly three decades later, a Warwickshire…

Here are some alarming facts. Forty-two per cent of prison inmates (figures from 2016) have been permanently excluded from school. Fifty-nine per cent have truanted school. Fifty per cent are functionally illiterate, with a reading age of below 11 years. And an excluded child is twice as likely to commit serious violence within a year of being permanently excluded than a child with a similar track record who is only suspended. QED children should not be excluded from school, and it is the fault of the education system that the prisons are full to bursting. Or is it? This summary makes me feel like poor old Henry V before Agincourt: ‘Upon the king! Let us our lives, our souls, our debts, our careful wives, our children and our sins lay…

When should oldies quit driving? That’s a theme many of us have pondered. So I was cheered to speak to an optimistic Irishman whose mission is to keep older drivers on the road as long as possible. Tomás O’Callaghan is an assessment and tuition specialist in County Cork, who advises the Irish College of General Practitioners about fitness to drive. When I wrote about having to stop driving – losing confidence with age, and facing mounting insurance costs – he sent me a message, saying I should review my options before stopping altogether. Tomás, 57, who has been advising drivers since 1997, says, ‘Age is not a barrier – ageism is prejudice.’ He has kept drivers on the road at 95, 97 and 98. He has motorists still driving safely…

The only fractures that I have so far sustained were of my tibia when I was eight, and of my nose when I was in my thirties. I sustained the former when I stumbled while chasing a boy in the school playground. I thought he’d unfairly taken the tyre I wanted to play with. Of that episode, I remember only my self-importance as I was carried to a chaise longue and given orange squash to drink, an unheard-of luxury at the time, the hothouse warmth inside my plaster cast and the terrible itching to which it gave rise. My broken nose was the result of a head-on crash into a wall as I drove recklessly to a restaurant in Scotland before it closed. A passer-by, thinking that the main assistance…

Bamber’s gas coin SIR: I am not sure if it’s Joseph Connolly’s memory or mine that’s playing tricks (‘You can’t say that!’, Spring issue), but I am fairly certain that Oxo gave a meal (not a man) man appeal. I wonder what Katie did next? In the same article Mr Connolly refers to a coin for a meter. A friend of mine used to refer to a shilling as a Bamber – ’cos it’s a gas coin. And, finally, on the names of drinks, did you know what mixture constitutes a ‘mother-in-law’? Stout and bitter of course. Les Dawson lives! Regards, Paul Barker, Brampton, Cumbria Preposterous presents SIR: My response to Piers Pottinger’s article ‘Preposterous Presents’ (Spring issue) is to nominate my all-time favourite. I cannot understand exactly why a…

HARRY POTTER’S OXFORD BLUES One of the crucibles of British sporting history is near my house. At the Oxford University Parks for nigh on 150 years, you can pass springtime watching first-class cricket for free. The county sides come here to warm up for the season by thrashing student bowlers to all parts. I once saw Kevin Pietersen hit a six of such steepling enormity, the ball may well still be orbiting the earth at the tail end of one of Elon Musk’s satellite trains. In the summer, you can watch gentlemen and ladies in pristine white playing leisurely tennis on the dozen or so grass courts, or become absorbed in a croquet match on the immaculate lawns. Just past the croquet field is an American football pitch, where the…

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has these big, friendly letters on the cover: DON’T PANIC. Panic is nearly always the worst thing to do in investment, as in life. By the time you have decided to try to retrieve something from the wreckage of your portfolio, it will be too late. Worse, you risk selling at the bottom, just as the clever money is deciding that the fall has been overdone and prices are about to bounce. Had you reacted to the dire commentaries as share prices round the world were poleaxed by Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, you would have risked this classic mistake. At such moments, when all around are screaming ‘sell’, you should be buying, or at the very least, sitting it out. The world is…

IN COMPETITION No 318 you were invited to write a poem called The Fair. Con Connell began with Michael Henchard’s sale of his wife for five guineas in The Mayor of Casterbridge. David Thompson enjoyed the Frankfurt Book Fair despite everything. Robert Best celebrated the millions who came to the Chicago World Fair ‘to ride the first Ferris Wheel, the first travelator;/ See Columbus and General Davis, two alligators.’ Alan Clews deliberately defied orthography: ‘Last knight I took a taxi, you won’t believe the fair./ The numbers on the metre, I had to sit and stair…’. Commiserations to them and to Alan Bradwell, Anthony Young, Roger Farrance, Rob McMahon, Denise Norman, Stefan Badham, Jenny Jones, Bob Morrow, Mary Leedham-Green, D A Prince, Daphne Lester and Ian Nalder, and congratulations to…

Four uninsured cars all sat on same Stoke-on-Trent street Sentinel Theme park offering chance to win part of famous snail Eastern Daily Press ‘Several’ drivers warned as police carry out speed checks East Lothian Courier £15 for published contributions NEW! Tune into Radio Oldie Every Tuesday, you can find the latest weekly interview by Harry Mount or Charlotte Metcalf with some of our Oldie friends, such as Stephen Fry, Craig Brown and A N Wilson. And we release three more podcasts on Top of the Pods, our selection of the best podcasts and comedy clips on the internet. Just sign up for the newsletter on the homepage of the website. Sign up to our weekly e-newsletter…

WHAT WAS Call My Bluff? Call My Bluff started out on BBC2 in 1965 and ran for more than 500 30-minute episodes until 1988, with a one-off special in 1994. It was relaunched on BBC1 in 1996 until 2004, chalking up 469 episodes. The idea was simple enough. The game comprised two teams of three, a captain and two guests. There was a referee in the chair. In turn, each team read out three definitions of an obscure word, one true and two bluffs. Points were earned when a team identified the correct definition. The format was devised by American entertainment-show supremos Mark Goodson (1915-92) and Bill Todman (1916-79) inventors of radio and TV shows such as The Price Is Right, Beat the Clock and What’s My Line? The first…

Sixty years ago, I received a small record through the post at the Jagger family home in Dartford, Kent. It was the US release of ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’. The 45rpm was blue and white and had no centre. So I searched for a plastic insert and put the record on the Dansette player. Hey, that’s different. The guitar had a fuzz-box sound – and what the hell was Mick banging on about? It was a quantum leap from the previous singles, though I fondly remember ‘Little Red Rooster’, as I happened to be present in the tiny studio in Denmark Street when it was cut. I was still at school, but somehow connected to the events playing out across the USA, where Sunset Strip and Los Angeles looked…

Not long ago, our kind editor asked me to address an Oldie Literary Luncheon in the august setting of the National Liberal Club. These are merry occasions for everyone, except for those speakers, such as me, who feel nerves, which both precede and follow the in-all-senses dreaded speech. This is not an excuse for what I am about to confess, but it might set my bad behaviour in some kind of context – since I find it increasingly frightening to make speeches in public, and I’m not entirely ‘myself’, whoever that may be, for hours before and after. As well as the guests, and the speakers, on these occasions, there is a small huddle of gossip columnists, hoping for a ‘story’. During this lunch, one of them approached me. The…

Though he will be remembered for the originality of his eye, the pieces Christopher Gibbs (1938-2018) wrote for books and magazines are just as memorable. ‘Buy the beautiful, the grotesque, the evocative, the insane,’ he told Vogue-readers in 1967. ‘Just please don’t buy what everyone else does.’ Born to tread his own path, Christopher had a seemingly innate aesthetic confidence, and it was underpinned by a scholar’s passion for history and social context. Wit and intoxicating charm were characteristic assets, too. ‘I want to help people create places where they can live beautiful lives,’ he once told me. Over 60 years of doing just that, he set the benchmark for a maverick grandeur that has been copied but never equalled. As an antiques dealer, collector, decorator and mentor, he had…

When Young Mouse was growing up, we attempted to teach him good grammar and pronunciation. My plan was that he would one day speak with the same eloquence as Oscar Wilde or Mr Darcy. In this aim, I was to be disappointed. The other day, I heard him chatting to a friend on his mobile phone. ‘Wagwan, my boy? Swear down! Nah, I’m cooked. Gonna lock in, man. What are the mandem saying? Say less, say less. Oh, I’m gassed – free yard on Saturday; maybe motive. Have I seen Joe? Nah, we’re beefing. Ye. Let’s cut. All right. Inabit, love.’ This strange and incomprehensible argot, I was to learn, has a name. It’s called Multicultural London English, or MLE for short. It’s an evolution from the so-called Jafaican (or…

All seven of the seven deadly sins are nasty, but some are much nastier than others. Several are travesties of fundamental goodness. Gluttony is an appetite for food and drink that has gone mad. Lust is a crazy and dangerous strain of sexuality. And sloth is a hideous caricature of that God-given bliss, rest. These are all a lot less nasty than envy. Envy has no redeeming features and no respectable antecedents. It is resentment or sadness at another’s good fortune or personal excellence. It carries with it an often insatiable desire to have what that other has. And also an urge to destroy not just another’s good fortune, but also the person. Envy has been around for a very long time, as is shown in the story of Cain…

Seeking a new interest, I signed on with a casting agency and very shortly thereafter found myself working with Derek Fowlds. Somehow his time as Mr Derek, sidekick to Basil Brush, had passed me by, but I very much admired the way he made the role of Bernard Woolley his own in Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. Heartbeat (1992-2010) saw him first as irascible but conscientious rural police sergeant Oscar Blaketon. Later on, during an enforced retirement, his character ran a local pub but still took an active interest in police matters. As an extra, I was on set with Derek many times; three episodes stand out particularly in my memory. On one occasion, as a villager about to help the police with their inquiries, I was required to…

God Is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England By Bijan Omrani Forum £25 Hymn-writers did for the English what opera did for the Italians, says Bijan Omrani, picking up an idea from the music historian Andrew Gant: ‘They filled a hole not just in British religion, but in British life.’ Yet when the author belted out O God, Our Help in Ages Past in a happy crowd outside Exeter Cathedral on the day of the King’s accession to the throne, no one seemed to join in. His daughter looked at him quizzically. Parents knowing the words of hymns has long been an embarrassment – and now reflects the evaporation of the Christian side of national culture. But Bijan Omrani’s title is upside down, really. His book is about…

As I grow older and older, And totter toward the tomb, I find that I care less and less, Who goes to bed with whom. Dorothy L Sayers I’ve become a captive of my own ambitions. Patsy Cline In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different. Coco Chanel I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells. Dr Seuss There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted. Henri Matisse It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Marcus Aurelius Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt I…

NORTH BY NORTHWEST Touring nationwide, until 22nd June ‘What’s your favourite Alfred Hitchcock film? Rear Window? Dial M for Murder? If I had to pick just one, I’d choose North by Northwest – which is why I was so curious to see this new theatrical adaptation, performed by just six actors on an almost bare stage. This jovial 1959 thriller is widely regarded as the quintessential Hitchcock movie, and no wonder. Whereas many of his greatest hits were adaptations of successful novels (Rebecca, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Strangers on a Train…), North by Northwest was devised from scratch by the brilliant screenwriter Ernest Lehman, tasked by Hitch to write a story starting with a murder at the United Nations and ending with a chase across Mount Rushmore. ‘I want to make…

OLIVER! Lionel Bart’s Oliver! is back for its third London revival since it first astonished and delighted the world in 1960. It’s one of the great musicals, a lonely outlier in British musical theatre between G&S’s The Gondoliers in 1889 and the arrival in the early 1970s of two new kids on the block, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, for whom Oliver! had been a primary inspiration. I, too, saw the original 1960 production, when a fellow called Barry Humphries was playing Mr Sowerberry the undertaker, and Baldrick-to-be, Tony Robinson, was one of Fagin’s teenage tearaways. I thrilled to it then and thrilled to this production even more, astonished by the sleight of hand of Oliver! veterans Cameron Mackintosh and director-choreographer Matthew Bourne, who’ve managed to go back to…

FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND ‘Why don’t we sell Scotland to Donald Trump? We know he is keen to expand US territory, and Scotland is surely more attractive than Greenland. It has many things he likes: golf courses, nuclear submarine bases, some of his relatives.’ So wrote S J Disley of Ketton, Rutland, to the Times. Until my recent visit to Edinburgh in February, I would have agreed with SJ. All those craggy mountains and the out-of-control heather, not to mention the forlorn emptiness of the place. But Edinburgh is a city transformed. While my son was at the university five years ago, he spent most of his time navigating roadworks. Leith Walk finally has a tram, and the city sparkles. We stayed with Angus and Annie. Annie is a hugely talented…

TAXING TIMES An RAC member of more than 40 years’ standing recently noticed his automatic renewal leap from £402 to £553. He checked the RAC website and saw that if he resigned and rejoined, he would pay £110. The RAC tried fobbing him off with excuses such as postcode, number of claims, RAC excellence etc. They then said the £110 offer was a 40-per-cent discounted introductory rate for newcomers. They eventually offered a ‘special discounted rate’ of £277. It’s always worth challenging breakdown service and insurance renewals. This year, I got £100 off my AA renewal and £200 off my insurance by adding my wife to the policy. It seems counterintuitive, but presumably it’s because my wife is 15 years younger and they assume this doddering old fool won’t be…