Think of the ‘firsts’ in which Britain has led the world: railways, television, the jet engine, penicillin, DNA structure – the list goes on.  Now…

Go and see The Wolf of Wall Street, if only because it’s directed by the great Martin Scorsese.  But don’t go expecting it to be…

Is Barack Obama a lousy president? My conservative friends have no doubt.  To them he is a terrible president, bumbling, lazy and unfocused – the…

Britain is now a second-rate military power and pretty soon won’t be asked to help America rid the world of what a former occupant of…

Season’s Greetings A growing number of Christmas cards we receive these days come with an enclosed letter reviewing the kind of year the sender has…

Now boys, who started the First World War? Please, Sir, it was the Germans.  They invaded Belgium. Quite right Higginbottom, well done. I seem to…

England cricket fans, this writer among them, are wandering around in a discombobulated trance asking that very question.  Nobody has yet come up with a…

The French may no longer be imbued with the romantic flair for which they were once justly renowned but at least they seem as adept…

Call me unworldly but until today I had never heard of La Quenelle, a ‘salute’ that involves placing the left hand on the right shoulder…

December again!   How on earth did that happen? Well, no, I’m not asking how it happened in the literal sense.  I’m perfectly well aware that…