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So much of life is a search for answers. How to get ahead, how to earn more money, how to be happy. But deep down, is there a part of [...]

Will they never learn? The signs are very clear: 'Beware! Horses may kick or bite.' Yet last week a woman became the latest tourist to get a shock at Horse [...]

'You grab that table, I'll get the drinks.' I did as bid. A couple of minutes later, Paul was back, beers in hand, and we started chatting. Soon the member [...]

The first thing I do is turn my watch upside down. India is five-and-a-half hours ahead of the UK, so the trick does the conversion for you. Well, sort of--a [...]

They are, to quote Mark Knopfler, down in the tunnel trying to make it pay. Transport for London has this week been holding auditions for buskers, assessing the performers for [...]

I love it when the England cricket team flies east in the winter. It means they're playing in the early morning, UK time, and that's just when I need them [...]

What is it about a tunnel that excites us so? Last week's story about the secret one in a New York synagogue fascinated the world, despite (or perhaps because of) [...]

Sad news from the Hall and Oates camp, where 'I Can't Go For That' has become 'I Can't Go Within A Specified Distance of You', Daryl Hall having taken out [...]

Around the World in 80 Games: A Mathematician Unlocks the Secrets of the Greatest Games by Marcus du Sautoy 4th Estate, [pounds sterling]22, pp. 384 If both players in a [...]

Poor old Daniel Khalife. He must have thought his exit from HMP Wandsworth, hidden underneath a delivery van, would win 'Most Creative Prison Escape of the Week'. But actually that [...]

We don't know if the two teenagers who attempted a train robbery in Scotland this week knew that it was the 60th anniversary of the most famous one in British [...]

The current Ashes series is proving a once-in-a-generation classic, one of those contests that cricket fans spend decades dreaming about. How are some of those fans reacting? They're refusing to [...]

I have inadvertently built my own coffin. I'm rather chuffed with it. It wasn't meant to be a coffin. It's actually a boat. My son found a YouTube video on [...]

Things are hotting up at Highgate Cemetery. Or they'll need to if the grander tombs are to survive. During one cold spell last year, the huge mausoleum to Victorian banker [...]

The J.D. does indeed come from J.D. 'Boss' Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard. But Tim Martin's reason for 'Wetherspoon' is slightly different from the commonly told version. Yes, it [...]

When her musical 9 to 5 opened at the Savoy Theatre earlier this year, Dolly Parton stayed at the Savoy hotel itself. Very convenient, you might think: the walk between [...]

Life's great joys are usually its little ones, and one of the greatest is ordering at the bar in a pub. The custom--as opposed to sitting at a table and [...]

It was halfway through lunch that something reminded my friend Marcus about Ray Charles and his plane. 'Did you know he used to fly it himself?' he asked the rest [...]

Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston Picador, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 384 Brian Bilston's life is summed up perfectly by the incident with his neighbour's dog. The annoying Mrs [...]

Stan & Ollie PG, Nationwide You mess with Laurel and Hardy at your peril. Their fan base is essentially the entire world. Samuel Beckett adored them: many think they inspired [...]

London, writes Dr Watson in the first Sherlock Holmes story, is 'that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained'. The quote sums [...]

Football is back--but the fans aren't. Covid means that clubs have to play their games behind closed doors. Which is a pity, as at dull games (far more common than [...]

You wouldn't have thought that Starbucks's pricing policy could influence rock history, but that's what happened. In the early 1990s, when Mike Kroeger was working in one of its Canadian [...]

Working from home has been on the rise for years. No one expected the latest surge to happen in the way it has, but now that we're here, what can [...]

The debate over whether Big Ben should bong to mark Brexit isn't the first time the famous bell has caused consternation. Listeners to a BBC radio news bulletin in 1949 [...]

Don't worry, this isn't a piece about fishing quotas. It's about the word 'mackerel' itself. Specifically, the fact that St John's Wood is the only London Underground station to share [...]

There's nothing like a nice bit of death on a Sunday evening. Radio 4 originally transmit their obituary programme Last Word on Friday afternoons, but I love listening to the [...]

In 1966, just as he was becoming famous, Michael Caine met John Wayne. The Hollywood veteran offered him some advice: 'Never wear suede shoes.' The explanation? 'One day, you'll be [...]

Jonathan Agnew recently described off-the-record interviews as those where you agree that it's 'between you and I'. Last month, Jess Phillips tweeted that she had 'read a few wild accounts [...]

You could say it started because of the French. The turmoil caused by their revolution got the British military worried about the possibility of an invasion, so maps of the [...]

The first one was too straight. In the absence of a speed limit, early motorists on the M1 used the long sections without bends as racetracks. The record was set [...]

Poor Mr Bergstresser. He put up the money to start the financial reporting company but his name wasn't as snappy as those of his two partners, so 'Dow Jones' it [...]

You may have noticed the Connaught a little more since 2011, when 'Silence', the steamy fountain by Japanese 'architect philosopher' Tadao Ando, was installed outside the entrance. But actually the [...]

Talking to someone in her mid-twenties recently, I mentioned someone else of the same age. 'She's a really talented girl,' I said. Then I checked myself. 'Sorry ... er ... [...]

St Martin's really did once stand in the fields, just as nearby Haymarket was a market selling hay. But the church has moved with the times. In 1924 it hosted [...]

It's a very fitting place for a magic shop. Hidden away in the maze of pedestrian tunnels that lead from Covent Garden to Charing Cross station, Davenports certainly takes some [...]

Reading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library by Chris Paling Constable, 14.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 320 This book kept reminding me of Robin Williams in One [...]

No Milk Today: The Vanishing World of the Milkman by Andrew Ward Little, Brown, 13.99 £, pp. 292 One of David Cameron's choices on Desert Island Discs, this book reminds [...]

Who was the second prime minister? Everyone knows Robert Walpole was the first. Firsts get all the fame and glory. But what about the poor seconds, elbowed into the shadows [...]

'Safe as the Bank of England.' So goes the old phrase. And yes, with walls 8ft thick, the Old Lady is pretty impregnable. Even the keys to her vaults are [...]

Yeti: An Abominable History by Graham Hoyland William Collins, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 310 In 1969 the body of an ape-like creature, preserved in ice inside an insulated box, came [...]

Long-distance walking is all the rage these days. There are all-nighters staged by charities, for instance the annual MoonWalk in London, which raises funds to fight breast cancer: participants of [...]

Harvey's finest moment, he would tell you, was the chicken kiev. I'd just made the garlic butter and inserted it into the chicken breast when the phone rang. The call [...]

Subtitles are taking over the world. It's increasingly rare these days for a video clip to be free of those irritating little bars along the bottom, rendering before your eyes [...]

There were two mascots for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. One was called Mandeville, obviously because Stoke Mandeville's games are seen as the precursor to the Paralympics. But why [...]

A Good Month for Murder: The Inside Story of a Homicide Squad by Del Quentin Wilber Pan Macmillan, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 275 Quick tip, should you ever find yourself [...]

So They Call You Pisher! A Memoir by Michael Rosen Verso, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 256 In 1952, the five-year-old Michael Rosen and his brother were taken on holiday along [...]

Have you heard about the invention that cures your smartphone addiction? Whereas normally you can't go more than a minute or two without checking your phone, this invention allows you [...]

A Monstrous Commotion: The Mysteries of Loch Ness by Gareth Williams Orion, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 400, ISBN 9781409158738 Spectator Bookshop, 17 [pounds sterling] It wasn't until I drove past [...]

Walking Away by Simon Armitage Faber, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 276, ISBN 9780571298358 Spectator Bookshop, 13.99 [pounds sterling] It's a real skill, writing about a journey where nothing ever happens. [...]