700 injured when four bombs exploded in London on the morning of 7 July. At about 8.50 a.m. three bombs exploded in the Underground: between Russell Square and King’s Cross on...

T he bombs in London last week killed people of all races and religions indiscriminately — as of course they were intended to. The terrorists who planted them were not...

no big deal, I was on the Central line on my way to White City to appear on a BBC2 lunchtime business programme whose usual select viewing audience was going to be greatly...

M eanwhile, back at the Tory party, they are still looking for a new leader. Thanks to the perceived brilliance of the Prime Minister — he has fed Africa, secured the 2012...

call ‘the innate good sense of the British people’, but the reactions of so many friends to last week’s bombings depress me. There is a funny mixture of complacency — ‘We will...

Boris Johnson says it is time to reassert British values in the face of extremist Islam I f we were Israelis, we would by now be doing a standard thing to that white...

Douglas Davis talks to José María Aznar in Madrid about terrorism, multiculturalism and the Atlantic alliance M y obituarist will, please God, pass lightly over my lamentable...

It’s all very well to boast that London can take it, says Rod Liddle , but there is no excuse for the patronising evasions of the authorities A ccording to all the newspapers...

Stephen Schwartz on the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, winner of the first Man Booker International Prize C ultural tourism can be an edgy adventure when promoted by...

A recent cartoon in the Los Angeles Times showed a punkish teenager saying to a more conventional youth, ‘I’m bored. Can I shave your head?’ Ho, ho. But then the paper...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft on the miraculous life of Lance Armstrong, who has just embarked on his last Tour de France Pau, France U ntil 1981 no American even so much as rode in the...

We live in some of the world’s oldest and most expensive homes, says James O’Shaughnessy , and it is time to do something about it W hen President Chirac criticised Britain’s...

T here we Londoners were on that Thursday morning going about our traditional business of being all multicultural and vibrant under Mr Livingstone. Suddenly we were innocent...

R isk assessment is the mantra of our time. You cannot organise a girls’ school hockey match without having to assess the risk that the combatants will bark their knuckles. The...

M y book Creators was finished some weeks ago and whizzed off to the publishers without my having fixed on any theory of the creative process. But the problem continues to nag...

Philip Hensher FREAKONOMICS by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner Penguin/Allen Lane, £20, pp. 242, ISBN 0713998067 ✆ £18 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 But things look up...

Digby Durrant T HE N IGHTINGALE P APERS by David Nokes Hesperus, £9.99, pp. 193, ISBN 1843917033 E ver since Dixon’s pie-eyed lecture on Merrie England in Kingsley Amis’s Lucky...

Harriet Sergeant M R M UO ’ S T RAVELLING C OUCH by Dai Sijie Chatto, £12.99, pp. 264, ISBN 070117739X ✆ £11.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 S hortly after the end of the...

William Leith M Y F RIEND L EONARD by James Frey John Murray, £16.99, pp. 304, ISBN 0719561159 ✆ £14.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 I n his first book, A Million Little...

D. J. Taylor B LINDING L IGHT by Paul Theroux Hamish Hamilton, £17.99, pp. 438, ISBN 0241142555 ✆ £15.99 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 P aul Theroux’s new novel finds Slade...

Michael Howard MONEYBALL by Michael Lewis W. W. Norton, £8.99, pp. 320, ISBN 0393324818 B aseball is a minority sport in Britain, and a tiny minority at that. It is played in...

Raymond Carr A T D AY ’ S C LOSE : A H ISTORY OF N IGHTTIME by A. Roger Ekirch Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 447, ISBN 0297829928 ✆ £18 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 A fter 20 years of...

Jonathan Mirsky O LGA ’ S S TORY by Stephanie Williams Viking, £20, pp. 412, ISBN 0670913766 ✆ £18 (plus £2.25 p&p) 0870 800 4848 T he first half of Olga’s Story is as good as...

The old-fashioned concert party is back. Henrietta Bredin enjoys the music-making T hrowing open the doors of your home for select musical gatherings seems a splendidly grand...

Master of the horse Andrew Lambirth Stubbs and the Horse National Gallery, until 25 September G eorge Stubbs (1724–1806) is best remembered as the dedicated anatomist of the...

For the people Tanya Harrod Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK The Curve, Barbican Centre, until 24 July and touring W hat is folk art? It is usually defined...

Hearts of darkness Toby Young Talking to Terrorists Royal Court Aristocrats Lyttelton The Obituary Show The Bush P oor Robin Soans. His new play, Talking to Terrorists, opened...

Private patronage Ursula Buchan S ir Edwin Lutyens reckoned that there will never be great architects or architecture without great patrons, and I rather think the same is...

Slaughter of a masterpiece Michael Tanner Giulio Cesare Glyndebourne I read an interview last week with David McVicar, director of Glyndebourne’s new production of Handel’s...

The ultimate movie pro Mark Steyn I happen to be writing this on board ship, in a little café, at a table by the window, with an idle eye on any glamorous women passing by....

After the bombs Michael Vestey W hen I heard of the London explosions last Thursday — I was rung shortly before leaving to catch a train to London, which I had to abandon — my...

Green was good James Delingpole Q uite the most important programme on TV last week — possibly all year — was Bjorn Lomborg on Environmentalism, part of Channel 5’s excellent...

Waiting for whiting Simon Courtauld W hiting does not seem to be fashionable these days — perhaps it never was — but in my early 20th-century edition of the Encyclopaedia...

Out of control Taki I was on a fast beam, sailing under high winds and a choppy sea off the north coast of Corsica, when the bombs went off in London. We heard about it when...

SIMON HOGGART S ometimes wine merchants lay in stocks of wine that they know to be terrific, but which don’t sell as well as they might because the public don’t know about...

By Tim Hitchcock L ast night I dreamt I went to Manderley – well, actually things became a blur of delights once my snoring conscience crossed the Tamar but it was Cornwall...

Love at first sight FRANK KEATING T hree good old boys of summer portly Pickwickian paragon cricket umpire, David Shepherd, took off his white coat for the final time in an...

Q. I have a six-week-old baby and have been invited to a lunch party by a neighbour. It was going to be my chance to meet all the other mothers in the street and chat about...

whining about paying £2 or £3 extra at restaurants and a possible ‘challenge of some kind’ from his, perhaps ‘immature’ stepson (who always chooses the most expensive dish on...

driving away from a house where one has spent an enjoyable luncheon or perhaps an entire weekend? Name withheld, Somerset A. Occupants of a car should roll down all the windows...