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Mr Toad, the flouncing, volcanic, squirrel-shooting charmer
A piece for the Sunday Times in which I asked friends of Michael Winner what he was like Friends of Michael Winner describe a man who enjoyed a reputation for being obstreperous but whose public...
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Prospect: Korean food
Prospect’s homepage I have a piece in the current issue of Prospect discussing the sudden popularity of Korean food. It isn’t online, but you can pick it up at the newsagent’s or subscribe here.
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The decline of the British high street
Freddy Cole of Tissimans, Bishop’s Stortford. Photo: Paul Vicente The building stands on a quiet street near the top of a hill. It is buckled and listing with age, and its handmade bricks, laid...
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Cough up, sir, you’ve left something nasty in the street
Anti-spitting enforcement officers at work in Waltham Forest (Jeremy Young) A woman is chasing a man down a crowded street. He is walking quickly, so she is following him as fast as she can without...
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I am almost proud to call myself a refugee here
A girl amid the rubble of Homs. Syrians fleeing torture and death under Assad tell Oliver Thring of their welcome in Britain After the weeks of sleep deprivation, the solitary confinement and beatings,...
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No, Mozart was a genius. I’m just a guy who can’t get a girlfriend
Carlsen is expected to take on the world champion this year (Julian Andrews) At just 22, Magnus Carlsen is being hailed as the greatest chess player of all time, but despite the adulation, life on...
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Eyes front! Wipers Times film to salute trench satire
A scene from the film about The Wipers Times, which was printed and distributed close to the front Almost 100 years after their work helped lift the spirits of war-weary Tommies during the First World...
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Interview with Ben Sullivan, the Oxford Union president accused of rape
Ben Sullivan was arrested on suspicion of the rape and attempted rape of two young women (Francesco Guidicini) This originally appeared in News Review, The Sunday Times Ben Sullivan looks tired and...
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A cat, a dog, and two ex-junkies
Bob and George have never met, and their first encounter has been arranged and policed with all the fraught intensity of a summit between warring nations. George is a dog, one of those stout urban...
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I drank coffee costing £300 a cup
Thorstein Veblen was the twinkly eyed 19th-century economist who coined — an appropriate word — the phrase conspicuous consumption. He thus gave name to one of the defining traits of any era: the...
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Tourists and memories at the oldest tree in Britain
This originally appeared in The Sunday Times Defynnog is a low-slung village set beneath the treeless, undulating scrub of the Brecon Beacons. A dozen or so houses, wedged between two A-roads, a...
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Cooking with Sorted Food
A feature that originally appeared in The Sunday Times ‘I couldn’t get the non-minty stuff,” says Jamie, stretching a stubby piece of dental floss through a supermarket slab of brie. A girl is wearing...
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The last place in Britain with affordable housing
Gareth and Haylee McCarron outside their six-bedroom, £275,000 home This originally appeared in The Sunday Times The road out of Whitehaven lurches and corkscrews through the west Cumbrian hills. These...
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How the postman might save your elderly mum
Joe Dickinson greets a pensioner on a Jersey doorstep. He mobilised the island’s postal workers to call on vulnerable people — an idea that won The Sunday Times Change Makers (Katie Patterson) To mark...
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The ghost village rises again
This feature originally appeared in The Sunday Times Haweswater curls like a tapeworm beneath the bald, brown peaks of Westmorland. This is the most isolated tarn in the Lake District, edged by a...
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Interview: Bob Geldof
This interview originally appeared in the Sunday Times Bob Geldof — sunken cheeks, bowed shoulders, 63 going on 80 — is explaining how the grief still grabs him. “I don’t have to be alone. I don’t...
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Interview: Ivan Massow
Ivan Massow with parrot (Francesco Guidicini) This interview originally appeared in The Sunday Times Forget the past indiscretions — escorts, drugs, boozing — and the two suicide attempts. The real...
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Interview: Peter Ackroyd
(Francesco Guidicini) This interview originally appeared in the Sunday Times There is a mystery to Peter Ackroyd that baffles his observers. How does the author — a plump and wheezing 65-year-old with...
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Interview: Johanna Basford
The first question is — why? Why have colouring books for grown-ups suddenly become a thing? On Amazon’s page of the bestselling books in this country, five of the top 11 are for overgrown toddlers...
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Travel: Driving Land Rovers in the Serengeti
(Simon John Owen) This feature originally appeared in The Sunday Times I am pulled over less than 10 minutes into my driving holiday. I’d been cruising along, hands clamped sweatily at ten to two,...
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