Kingsley Amis
Why are publishers such bad judges when it comes to their own memoirs?
Anthony Cheetham has been responsible for many bestsellers, but this guarded account of his career in the book trade won’t be one of them
Kingsley goes to the toilet
In 1978, I gave a poetry reading at Hull University. Philip Larkin was glumly, politely, in attendance. I was duly…
Don’t tell me to ‘unwind’!
The most irritating word of the year was ‘unwind’. ‘Unwind with one of our artisan cocktails in the curated ambience…
A talent to abuse
The nonagenarian’s critical faculties are as sharp as ever in these imaginary letters addressed to Kingsley Amis, Jonathan Miller, Doris Lessing and many others
A veil of obscurity
Philip Hensher discusses how words relating to women’s ordinary experiences have been shrouded in euphemism over the centuries
Similar to
‘Blame Kingsley Amis,’ said my husband, with the carelessness of one defying a man out of earshot. The blame, such…
Might
‘I’m with the King,’ said my husband. The king in question was Kingsley Amis, whose choleric The King’s English was…
Fare game
A fictional Spectator restaurant critic called Forbes McAllister appeared on Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge. He was played…
Speaker-speak: the maddening rhetoric of John Bercow
Much has recently been written about the incumbent Commons Speaker, from (vigorously denied) allegations of bullying to (less vigorously denied)…
A biographer’s tale: beware of meeting your literary heroes
Germaine Greer described biographers as ‘vultures’. I prefer to think of myself as a version of Philip Marlowe or Sam…
When Kingsley Amis needed a new insult, he reached for the taboo
‘It’s up there on the shelf you can’t reach,’ said my husband in an unhelpfully helpful tone. The ‘it’ was…
The
Veronica, who looks at Twitter, told me of an exchange she thought would interest me, about the use of the.…
Junk Bond
After six decades, it’s time we were done with 007
… and sense and sensibility
Book reviews, John Updike once wrote, ‘perform a clear and desired social service: they excuse us from reading the books…
Scratching a living
John Gross’s The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters: English Literary Life since 1800, a standard text for…
Larkin’s misty parks and moors — in all their lacerating beauty
When Philip Larkin went up to St John’s College, Oxford, in the early 1940s, he found himself in a world…
Poison pen letters
Richard Bradford has written more than 20 books of literary criticism and biography. This latest one is a compendium of…
Diary
Until recently I used to claim that I had been literary editor of The Spectator for over 25 years; now…
The paradigm of a poet
We needn’t apologise for Philip Larkin any longer, says Peter J. Conradi. His place is unmistakeably among the greats
The Spectator’s Notes
Who owns Scotland? The people who most commonly ask this question believe that the land has been wrested from ordinary…
