Search

'The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and . . . no other task is of any consequence.' So Palinurus, aka Cyril Connolly, warns in the [...]

Albert Speer was commissioned by the Chinese government to lay out a masterplan for the access to the Olympic Green in Beijing. His design consisted of one impressive avenue connecting [...]

I have an aunt who is a 90-year-old Chinese Catholic nun. Until last year she was confined to a wheelchair, badly arthritic, and totally blind, but then a miraculous operation [...]

If you want to place-drop seriously, Bayreuth weighs in at a couple of tons. It has to be the snootiest place on earth to spend the height of one's summer, [...]

I saw Henry VIII last Monday. He looked exceptionally thin and fit. No wonder, as he was played by the young and six-packed Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the BBC series [...]

'Since Dad went to work in England, Mum and I have been missing him all the time. Dad isn't young anymore and he's alone in a foreign country. It's all [...]

The grandson of the King told my wife and me at dinner that we were 'the only two tourists in Kabul'! In fact, we nearly did not arrive because on [...]

Beijing An immediate rumour after the opening ceremony at the Beijing Games was that an emergency meeting of the British Olympic Committee was convened in order to find an excuse [...]

My daughter telephoned to say, to my disbelief, that she was snowbound in Hangzhou, where it never snows. The city is regarded as the most beautiful in China, with swaying [...]