Bob Geldof
We’re wrong to mock Do They Know It’s Christmas?
‘I hope we passed the audition,’ said an alarmingly youthful Bob Geldof at one point in The Making of Do…
Poetry in motion
Craig Raine on the challenges of translating poets’ lives and work to the screen
High life
Coronis Embracing one’s vulnerability seems to have replaced the higher, faster, stronger ethos of the Olympics. The very frailty that…
High life
New York Orthodox Easter Sunday came late in May this year, and I spent it at an old friend’s Fifth…
Dysfunctional music by dysfunctional people
A star is born, but instead of emerging into the world beaming for the cameras, he spits and snarls and…
High Life
No use datelining any more, I’m here for the duration. Even the ski lifts have been ordered to close: chiuso,…
Remembering Tim Hoare – a man like no other
He was a Falstaff in his drinking and in his celebration of life, but his greatness lay in his friendships.…
Standing on the Acropolis brings out the Greek in me
Athens I am struggling up the slippery marble steps of the Acropolis with the Geldofs and the Bismarcks. We gaze…
Chatting to Bob Geldof about Boris and Brexit
Coronis We are steaming on Puritan towards the private isle of Coronis for a long Pugs weekend and the…
High life
As everyone who stands up when a lady enters the room knows, the once sacrosanct rules of civility throughout the…
Singing Ireland into being
In recent years there’s been a fashion for arts documentaries presented by celebs rather than boring old experts — presumably…
High life
If cheating is the cancer of sport, losing has to be its halitosis. I stunk out the joint in Amsterdam…
Barometer
Yeah, Bob, they know The answer to the rhetorical question posed by the Band Aid single, ‘Do they know it’s…
High life
As everyone who has ever joined a club knows, Pugs is the world’s most exclusive one, its members ranging from…
High life
New York The poet was right: April is the cruellest month. We at The Spectator lost Clarissa Tan, my good…
The Spectator’s Notes
Maria Miller’s forced resignation is a disgrace. No iniquity was proved against her. Over her expenses, I suspect her motive…
