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This has been the most fascinating political year I can remember. I have even found myself dreaming about politics - and neither the excitements nor the perils are likely to […]

Crime. Fear not: none of us was planning to break the law, with the possible exception of hate speech. Where that is concerned, how would one start? But we were […]

We were assembled to taste Chilean wines assisted by magnificent Scottish food, courtesy of the Scottish embassy in London, otherwise known as Boisdale. But there was a problem of etiquette. […]

What goes best with a broken rib? The answer, I think, is any drink you enjoy that will not make you laugh. I was strolling along to Richmond station after [...]

Most Tory MPs enjoy leadership elections. There may be an element of what the trickcyclists call 'displacement activity'. Equally, it is tempting to employ the cliche about rearranging the furniture [...]

My last piece began with a oneword sentence: 'Gloom.' A dear friend reproached me. 'In a world already abundant with gloom, surely you can find a way of cheering us [...]

Gloom. Relentless rain out of a sullen sky enhanced an already pessimistic mood. We were talking geopolitics and agreeing that the West ought to brace itself for a hard landing. [...]

Paris is more than a city. It is a state of mind, an aspiration. Though it glorifies the military, it remains feminine and beguiling. Its heroes moved effortlessly from triumphs [...]

A friend was in town, who rebuts two instances of dull conventional wisdom. The first is that although Swiss Germans may have many qualities--they make excellent bankers--they have no joie [...]

Back in 1989, a most unsatisfactory fellow called General Aoun started a civil war around Beirut in the hope of seizing control of the Maronite Christian portions of Lebanon. He [...]

I am assured that this is not a legend. But a few years ago, an Irishman's life was twice saved by a raging bull. The Irish fellow was running with [...]

'Come dance with me in Ireland.' That has always struck me as an enchanting prospect, though a recent Hibernian venture did not involve dancing and took place in London. There [...]

Life is returning to normal. Clinics, pills et al are receding into the distance. There was never anything remotely approaching a crisis, but at moments, life felt like one. Before [...]

I am occasionally teased. In a column devoted to drink, which in practice usually means wine and often the products of Bordeaux to give one plenty of scope, I am [...]

Not everything in the entire world is going to hell in a halftrack. A few days ago, I tasted some South African wines. Although there are many reasons for a [...]

'Golden' is often used to describe the hue of some wines in the glass. But there is another resemblance. Gold is a beautiful metal as well as a store of [...]

Even in recent heat, the English summer can be magical. As long as there is shade, a pool and a steady supply of cooling wine, there is so much to [...]

Imagine a camel train, crossing the great desert. The remaining water is rancid; the beasts' humps are shrunken. Death looms. Then suddenly, there is the sound of a fountain plashing [...]

'Club' is a four-letter word. Whenever a club is mentioned in the press, it will inevitably be portrayed as a sinister meeting place where men gather in secret to plot [...]

One could get used to this. I come from seafaring stock, albeit distant. 'Anderson' suggests Viking antecedents, especially as my forebears came from the Shetland Islands. Yet there must have [...]

It was an extraordinary weekend. The various spectacles had something for all tastes: pageantry on Horse Guards; solemnity in St Paul's; the street party of all street parties on the [...]

I was reminded of the worst liquid that I have ever consumed. It was the last occasion on which I drank Coca-Cola, nearly 50 years ago. To be fair to [...]

Amid the grandeur of old Edinburgh, in the lee of the castle, is one of the finest buildings in Scotland: George Heriot's School. But Heriot's is more than an architectural [...]

The Irish rarely understate their achievements. Yet there is one exception. Over the centuries, the links between Catholic Ireland and the Bordeaux wine trade have been fruitful. O'Brien (Pepys's Ho [...]

My dear friend Richard Stow is a most congenial fellow. A serious financial entrepreneur, he is also a clubman and an oenophile. Over a sound meal and good bottles, he [...]

The inhabitants of Tuscany and Umbria can claim to be the most civilised beings on the planet, even exceeding the Afrikaners and the Ulster Prods. In the farms, villages and [...]

Bruce Anderson The larger islands of the Mediterranean all have their glories. Fought over for millennia, they now seem to have attained stability as part of the post-1945 political order, [...]

There was only one flaw in my Christmas this year. I did not spend enough of it with Santa Claus-age children. It is of course easier to delight in the [...]

Four hundred and fifty years ago this month, a great victory helped to safeguard European civilisation. The battle of Lepanto would be more enthusiastically commemorated if our civilisation retained its [...]

In London, the weather is a gentle sashaying mockery. An Indian summer reminds us of the sullen apology of summer which we have just endured. Soon it will be winter, [...]

There was a marvellous general of yesteryear called George Burns. He had a good war and a splendid peace. He also held senior posts for longer than would be permitted [...]

In an apparently benign--almost prelapsarian--setting, the Rhine is an epitome of the human condition. Scenery is rarely more beautiful or more glorious. Yet it can be equally hazardous. This is [...]

Some time ago, I wrote that rose should only be drunk south of Lyon, but one could start on the first bottle around 10.30 while brushing away the last shards [...]

'The doors clap to, the pane is bright with showers.' With 'summer' determined to do its worst, there is one obvious question. How were the English able to invent cricket [...]

It is hard to decide which is more depressing, the extension of the lockdown or the public support for this latest instance of ministerial panic. The Royal Navy may still [...]

It seemed a suitable topic for a bank holiday. We were discussing Haut-Brion, a bank-breaking wine. There is a question that is often asked. Which is the greatest claret, Haut-Brion, [...]

The last Saturday of lockdown--inshallah--and we were discussing literature. Specifically, when does a detective story become a novel? T.S. Eliot edited the World's Classics edition of The Moonstone and gave [...]

We were discussing travel, that forbidden delight now tantalisingly close. Where would be our first destination? Forswearing originality, I chose Venice. Among the world's greatest paintings, one in particular does [...]

A year of lockdowns has certainly passed slowly. But there are topics for thought. One disappointment has been the Church of England's failure to take its opportunity. It could have [...]

We were celebrating the end of lockdown by talking about war and deer stalking--over a business lunch, naturally. My friend David Mathew, from a distinguished legal, military and political family, [...]

I feel like a prisoner, making daily marks on the cell wall to chart the approach of freedom. But will it be freedom, or will we be on parole, obliged [...]

At least in London, midwinter spring has not been entirely vanquished, and the trees are still a couple of strong winds away from losing their autumn glory. This will give [...]

There is no new thing under the sun. Over the weekend, I read a book which was alarmingly relevant to our present discontents: The Neophiliacs, by Christopher Booker, written at [...]

There was a shrewd old Tory MP called John Stokes. He was not on the left of the party. Indeed, I once told him that he was the right pole. [...]

Life is far too important to be taken seriously. At least, that was the conclusion which we meandered towards as a Sunday lunch party eased into a symposium. Chaps had [...]

Early last century, an impoverished youth emerged from the East End. Able and hard-working, he discovered--as many had before him--that the City offered an open route to opportunity and riches. [...]

One of the pleasures of journalism is the opportunity to meet eminent persons: bankers, businessmen, civil servants, diplomats, politicians, vignerons. Although there are occasional exceptions, such as Theresa May and [...]

'The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers / Pass me the bottle, old lad, there's an end of summer.' The paraphrase was justified, for the weather was [...]

Peace came dropping slow. I have never regarded west Flanders as part of la France profonde, but here we were, only a few miles from Lille, in the depths of [...]

Roy Hattersley once wrote a plangent passage about a painful aspect of the human condition: the short span of animals' lives. The owner who commits his affections condemns himself to [...]