The Oldie

Editor Harry Mount Sub-editor Penny Phillips Art editor Jonathan Anstee Supplements editor Jane Mays Editorial assistant Amelia Milne Publisher James Pembroke Patron saints Jeremy Lewis, Barry Cryer At large Richard Beatty Our Old Master David Kowitz

‘I find it much easier to write as Les or Edna. If I'm writing as myself, I have to invent a character who is me,’ Barry Humphries said once, discussing a piece in The Old Fella, as Sir Les Patterson called The Oldie. How lucky The Oldie was to get f

Loose sheep back in field Evesham Journal Sailing club aiming to re-launch lakeside café Congleton Chronicle Norman Centre's overgrown bush finally cut back Norwich Evening News £15 for published contributions The June issue is on sale on 31st May 20

Given how few experiences qualify as unique in this miserably repetitive world, one would be demented to imagine oneself to be the only victim of fatigue induced by a grand old name in high-street banking. Indeed, one previous sufferer comes racing t

‘A clothes prop?’ The young sales assistant in the timber merchants looked baffled. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A long piece of wood with a notch in it. Holds the washing line up.’ She still looked blank. Once, every garden had a clothes prop and a washing line.

Premiumisation is when a company persuades customers to spend more on a ‘premium’ or ‘luxury’ or ‘boutique’ version of an everyday product. It's a horrible word – premiumisation – and as such it's extremely popular in the English-abominating corporat

I was born in London in 1920, while my family was passing through the city. Two weeks later, with me a babe in arms, we moved to Gloucestershire, where life was hard – but we didn't see it that way. Today, of course, everyone's lives are so different

The time has come for me to disappear. I knew that when the Queen died, the game was over for me. As a small boy (back in 1959), I attached myself to her coat-tails by a long, invisible, metaphorical thread and flew happily behind her for decades. Oc

I was in a sauna suckin’ on a coldie When I got this email from my mates at The Oldie: ‘We're having a big lunch at the Savoy There'll be Royalty present.’ I said, ‘Oh boy!’ It was then that I read the bit under my thumb: It said, ‘No offence, Les, b

The robots are coming! German photographer Boris Eldagsen won the Sony World Photography Award, and then handed back his prize. He admitted that the stunning photograph, of two women, one hunched behind the other's shoulder, was made by AI (Artificia

‘Who put salt in the sugar bowl? ‘Who put fireworks in the coal?’ These were the opening lines of Terry Scott's naughty-schoolboy song, My Brother, back in 1962. The song was indicative of an era when pranks and practical jokes were more or less expe

I am looking down out into my north London street at the moment. It's a quiet street, mid-afternooon, and it is chocka with vans. What are they all doing? Delivering groceries, that's what. There is a Waitrose van – we have quite a few toffs in our s

Tights were slow in coming to Northern Ireland – so I started teenage life in stockings with suspenders. Suspender belts – worn around the waist or hips with hook-and-eye fastening – were uncomfortable because they dug into even slim bodies, causing

It's high time there was a box set of Muriel Box films. In 1945, Box (1905-91) was the first woman to win an Oscar for best original screenplay, for The Seventh Veil. She wrote 22 films and directed a dozen of them in the 1950s, when she was the one

He remembered Adlestrop. And Ainsdale, Airmyn, Aldeburgh, Aldermaston and Aldridge. And so on, through more than 2,000 ‘passenger stations and halts to be closed’, before the final tolling of the bell at Yeovil Town, Yetminster and Yorton. In Scotlan

Janan Ganesh, a writer on the Financial Times, has claimed there is a shortage of reactionary voices in Britain today. Mr Ganesh could nominate only one true reactionary in British public life: the commentator Peter Hitchens. There just aren't enough

After an Ofsted inspection has deemed a school ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, the school can expect a four-year pause before the next visit. We were last visited in 2017 – so have been living on borrowed time. Every now and again, we would hear that Ofsted

• The most frequently used noun in English is ‘time’. •The Amondawa people of the Amazon have no word for ‘time’. • Danish has no word for ‘please’. • Sanskrit has no word for ‘emotion’. • Winston Churchill was the firstto use ‘sniper’ in print. The

I deliberately chose to live as an enclosed Carmelite nun, with all that this entails of strict enclosure. I was at least partially aware of the sacrifices that might be involved. I knew that what I needed in my life was totality of commitment. But,

Ronnie Blythe, author of Akenfield, Britain's greatest writer about the countryside and an Oldie contributor, was also a lay canon at St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds. His memorial service was held there. Novelist Julia Blackburn, a friend o

‘How are you getting home?’ asked Jimmy Savile. It was 1965. I was a 17-year-old reporter on the Manchester Comet weekly newspaper. I had just interviewed him at the Top Ten Club in the New Elizabethan Ballroom, Belle Vue, east of the city centre. I

Thirty-five years ago, I was in New York, reporting for BBC radio from their US studios high up in the Rockefeller Centre. Suddenly, one Wednesday evening, I sprang to my feet as a very familiar face passed by my door. It was Alistair Cooke (1908-200

The Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours By Niki Segnit Bloomsbury £20 There are cookery writers, recipe-writers and culinary historians. And then there's Niki Segnit. She's the real thing – a genuine, gold-plated sui generis (she's earned herself the La

The Seaside: England's Love Affair By Madeline Bunting Granta Books £20 The seaside, as Brits popularly conceive it, promises fun and sun, bucket and spade, fish and chips. It originated as an English idea, the beach as a place of R and R: to go to t

Too Thin for a Shroud By Crispin Black Gibson Square £20 On 8th June 1982, during the Falklands conflict, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Sir Galahad was bombed in Port Pleasant by Argentine aircraft with the loss of 48 personnel, including 32 men from the

Orwell: The New Life By DJ Taylor Constable £30 Why – how – does Orwell matter? It is because of Animal Farm. Like so many decent people, Orwell espoused the aspirations of the Left during the dark years of the European dictatorships. Being honest as

Driving is no fun these days. Cars used to represent freedom and enterprise, but now misery seems to be the motorist's constant companion. I used to have a car but got rid of it a decade ago. I have only good memories of bombing around town in the ni

How can you ever make a compelling documentary about a writer, even one as brilliant as Patricia Highsmith? Writers are famous for, um, writing – which doesn't make for gripping viewing, as the footage of Highsmith typing demonstrates. Still, you can

This AI thing. Artificial intelligence. Scary! Already China has an AI news presenter, dead-eyed. Radio 4 gave us A Documentary: By ChatGPT, proving that an AI artist – named Aida after Ada Lovelace, Byron's mathematician daughter – could talk the ta

With a coronation on, I found myself taking down from the shelves Paul McCreesh's fascinating two-disc anthology An English Coronation: 1902-1953. Cast in the form of the ceremony itself, it marries the coronation liturgy with some of the best music

British Museum, 4th May to 13th August Food historian Tasha Marks has cooked up a recipe to publicise this show. Her gilded walnut baklava was inspired by an account of the sweetmeats for one of Alexander the Great's feasts. When the courtiers wanted

For garden-minded people in an urban or suburban neighbourhood, Ben Dark's The Grove will ring bells. Subtitled A Nature Odyssey in 19½ Front Gardens, it tells the often surprising stories that cling to a score of everyday plants – magnolias, buddlei

Years ago, I had a few plants of hyssop. When I moved house, I left the hyssop behind. I don't remember using it to fl avour food or to edge a border, but I have recently learned there are several good reasons for growing this herb again. Perhaps the

‘“Sexist”? What's wrong with being sexy?’ asked Nigel Tufnel, lead guitarist of Spinal Tap, whose amplifier went to 11 because ‘it's one louder’. This is my preface to an (arguably) sexist generalisation about my acquaintances among the fair sex when

Every year, in the second weekend in May, 120,000 mint juleps are served at the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, Louisville. Unlucky punters have a lot of sorrows to drown but that's still a phenomenal number of cocktails. It is a fine drink. Shake

Twenty-five years ago, the scriptwriter Colin Shindler wrote a memoir called Manchester United Ruined My Life. It charted how, as a lifelong supporter of the then perpetually stuttering Manchester City, he felt he was wilting under the shadow cast by

A letter from Virgin Money arrived at Jane's home, addressed to Wendy, the late wife of her partner, Andrew. The bank wanted to see her ID to update her account details. Wendy had died 20 years before, 400 miles away, aged 55. Andrew now has dementia

I am a happy user of Spotify, the biggest online music-streaming service, but I am beginning to wonder if it's worth the money. Music enthusiasts of my vintage have seen a steady progression from one medium to another. I can just recall 78rpm Bakelit

You may have seen advertisements for motorway.co.uk. I hadn't, but my nephew reported an easy sale of his VW Passat. So I gave them a try. It's an online network of dealers – no private buyers. Dealers pay to be on it, you advertise your car, they bi

I'm standing in a crowded souk in the bustling centre of Marrakesh, watching my 81-year-old mother haggling over a pretty Moroccan plate. It's hard to hear above the frantic hubbub, but I can tell she's doing a lousy job. The trick is to get the sell

What are your earliest childhood holiday memories? I'm one of six kids and Dad worked for the electricity board. We lived in a council house, so there was very little money, but there would be day trips to Weymouth. When I was older, we went on a car

1 Heavy (7) 5 Ticket profiteer (4) 7 Subject (5) 8 Achieve (6) 10 To harvest (4) 11 Boo-boos (8) 13 Partner(anag); snare (6) 14 Get away (6) 17 Dispossession of home (8) 19 Mimics (4) 21 Deeply religious (6) 22 Pulsate (5) 23 Relieved, pleased (4) 24

George Loater, West, was full of himself after this deal from a friendly(ish) rubber. ‘I was in such trouble responding to partner's take-out double (of Two Diamonds).’ No one looked up – they'd been there. ‘I had to bid Three Clubs confidently or yo

IN COMPETITION No 292 you were invited to write a poem called The Walk. How good and numerous were your entries. Congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of The Chambers Dictionary going to Anthony Young. I'

Q My granddaughter of 15 has decided she was born into the wrong body and is now insisting everyone call her Michael, instead of Vanessa, which is how we've known her ever since she was born. I find all this ridiculous and so does her grandfather. Sh

Griff Rhys Jones (p14) starred in Not the Nine O'clock News and Alas Smith and Jones with Mel Smith. His BBC series A Pembrokeshire Farm covered the renovation of his holiday home. Prue Leith (p16) is a judge on The Great British Bake Off. Born in Ca