The end of estate agents
Whatever you think about the internet, it does bring one great benefit to mankind — the gradual death of the old-fashioned estate agent. The funeral is still some way off. At the moment, only 5.5 per...
View ArticleBoris jumps in
The View from 22 podcast http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07_August_2014_v4.mp3 So Boris has made his great leap. The blond king over the water has revealed his plans to cross the...
View ArticleHard times
When the late, great Ronald Searle and Geoffrey Willans conspired to create St Trinian’s and Nigel Molesworth, the archetypal English prep school boy, they wanted to evoke an air of -austere, post-war...
View ArticleLovely Squares
There’s a surreal sight at the western entrance to the gardens of St James’s Square these days. An isolated set of eight iron railings stands on the edge of the flower bed. Look at the notice attached...
View ArticleCorsica
Napoleon’s birthplace, Casa Buona-parte, in Ajaccio, Corsica’s capital, is pretty grand. It has high ceilings, generous, silk-lined rooms and a gallery that could double as a mini-ballroom. The house...
View ArticleDeath to hipsters
Listen http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_Oct_2014_v4.mp3 Calling all hipsters, it’s time to get the razor out! You have hit peak beard. You’ve had a decade of getting away with...
View ArticleThe Alps
For a melancholy example of the power of celebrity, head to the Alps. Since Michael Schumacher’s accident last December in Méribel, the use of ski helmets has soared in the mountains. My skiing...
View ArticleSigns of contempt
Broadhaven Beach in Pembrokeshire was once a sublime combination of the works of nature and man. The broad, deep, sandy bay is flanked by towering limestone cliffs. Two hundred years ago, a stream...
View ArticleSworn out
When did the advertising industry decide that swearing sells? Look around you, and you’ll start to see rude, unfunny double entendres everywhere. The latest company to jump on the bandwagon is Toyota —...
View ArticleAll in the worst possible taste
In the giftshop at the new Elvis exhibition at the Dome, you can buy your own version of his flared white jumpsuits. I can’t think of anyone who could wear one and not look ridiculous — particularly if...
View ArticleFame and scandal in the family
The first Marquess of Dufferin and Ava is largely forgotten today — rotten luck for the great diplomat of the Victorian age. In the second half of the 19th century, Dufferin zoomed around the empire,...
View ArticleImpressionist Paris
The spectre of the Charlie Hebdo killings still hangs over Paris. Outside the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, opposite the Louvre, there’s a big poster of Cabu, one of the murdered...
View ArticleHarry Mount
I never knew classicists could be so scary! Last week I wrote a Telegraph article saying classics exams had been dumbed down. It followed the news that Camden School for Girls — the last comprehensive...
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How the Big Apple lost its bite
When Debbie Harry, the lead singer of Blondie, moved to New York from smalltown New Jersey in the late 1960s, you could live in the city for next to nothing. These days, Harry says, Blondie could never...
View ArticleTwo wheels good
Bicycles — in Britain, anyway — are the Marmite means of transport. I am among the bicycle-lovers, almost religious and certainly addicted in my need to have a daily bike ride. But I can see why people...
View ArticleSloane dangers
Ann Barr — who created the Sloane Ranger with Peter York in 1982 — died in May at the age of 85. But the co-author of The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook lived long enough to see the birth of a sad new...
View ArticleGreece’s crisis turns to tragedy
Athens On Sunday night, a protest in favour of staying in the euro gathered in Syntagma Square, in front of the Greek parliament building. They were quickly confronted by a group of anti-EU...
View ArticleA letter from Harper Lee
Who knows whether Harper Lee, now 89, has given permission for her novel, Go Set a Watchman, to be published next week? Perhaps — as the rumours have it — she really is deaf and blind, and mentally...
View ArticleGreece Notebook
At the weekend, I tried — and failed — to get some money out of an empty cashpoint near Omonia Square. The Eurobank cashpoint was covered in fresh anti-German graffiti: ‘No to the new German fascism,’...
View ArticleAntigua
‘Tourism, tourism and tourism,’ said my Antiguan cab driver, when I asked what the country’s main industries were. Still, it’s easy to avoid the other tourists, even though the island’s just over 100...
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