The perfect malt
It was poker night. Five yuppies crammed round a table in a room at the back of a south London…
Comical-tragical-historical
There is farce in Peter Oborne’s history of cricket in Pakistan. An impossible umpire is abducted by drunken English tourists…
Gleneagles
Pity the folk at Gleneagles. They have the misfortune to host the Ryder Cup this year. Nothing, surely, can surpass…
Sketches of war and peace
Soldier scribes are rare, soldier artists rarer still, and soldiers who can write and draw rarest of all. General Henry…
Unsettling meditations
The Blyth Gallery is situated in the Sherfield Building, deep in the South Kensington campus of Imperial College London. The…
Charting history
When you’re next waiting for a train at King’s Cross, don’t waste time window shopping on the concourse. Instead, pop…
Glorious gallimaufry
Discoveries: Art, Science and Exploration at Two Temple Place (until 27 April) is like a giant cabinet of curiosities. Maps,…
Golf in the Algarve
My second tee shot soared high and straight, then hurtled down towards the lake; a repeat of my first. I…
Sins of omission
Georgians Revealed: Life, Style and the Making of Modern Britain at the British Library (until 11 March) would have you…
Collision course
I have a new party piece. I can explain, with a degree of clarity and precision, how the Hadron Collider…
Captain courageous
Andrew Strauss is a serious man and Driving Ambition (Hodder, £20, Spectator Bookshop, £18) is a serious book. It looks…
Images of war
Catalyst: Contemporary Art and War at the Imperial War Museum North (until 23 February) is alone worth a trip to…
Mine of information
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air is an art show largely without art (at Manchester Art Gallery until 19…
‘Give people a break’
David Blackburn talks to Gwyneth Williams,who wants to revitalise Radio 4’s coverage of the arts
Making a mint
Send George Osborne to the Tower, then he might learn that currency manipulation rarely ends well. Coins and Kings occupies…
Battle of the buildings
A rare jewel sits in the middle of the Hyde Park Corner roundabout. The Quadrant Gallery, run by English Heritage,…
Fracking the village
What happens when talk of ‘exploratory drilling’ comes to a pretty corner of West Sussex
