Sweet And Sour Days In Perugia

As a student, Elinor Goodman was bowled over by a charming American, who did the dirty on her. Fifty years later, he got in touch…

Happy LXth Birthday, Asterix!

As Asterix turns 60 and stars in a new book, Giles Coren hails the comic equal of Chaucer, Shakespeare and PG Wodehouse

A Telly Room Of Our Own

As Virginia Woolf ’s A Room of One’s Own turns 90, Mary Killen and Giles Wood from Gogglebox write about…

The Coast With The Most

There may be more dramatic coastlines elsewhere but few encompass such diversity of geological forms as our own: precipitous cliffs of red sandstone and pure white chalk; bold promontories and deep bays; great stretches of sand and shingle and mighty tidal estuaries.

The Socrates Of The BBC

Harry Mount was at school and university with Louis Theroux but never realised quite how clever – or worried – he was

The Return Of Dr Zhivago

As a boy, Nicolas Pasternak Slater was forbidden from meeting his uncle Boris Pasternak. Now he’s translated the author’s masterpiece

William Hogarth's Fashionable Orgy

The Rake’s Progress isn’t just a naughty picture of drunken depravity. It’s also an inspired guide to 1730s clothes, says Philippa Stockley

John Nash Steps Out Of Big Brother's Shadow

Paul Nash may be better known but his brother was more gifted, says Andrew Lambirth, and had a rare eye for untidy British landscapes

Victim Of Murderous Envy

Kenneth Cranham was Joe Orton’s favourite actor. He saw the writer courted by the Beatles, as his plays flourished on stage and screen – while Orton’s boyfriend, maddened by failure, descended into a green-eyed rage.

The Stuff Of Genius

Matisse filled his studio with objects to serve as props and inspiration. Tanya Harrod is thrilled to see them reunited with his paintings.

Prince Of Denmark

Aalborg and the northern dunes, the meeting point of two seas, have lured artists, writers and nature-lovers for generations – a cultured haven fusing style with tradition.

Crumbling El Dorado For A Sussex Surrealist

Deep in the Mexican jungle, an Englishman created an extraordinary garden, crammed with concrete follies and clouds of blue butterflies.It remains a strange, seductive place.

The Wren

The Wren 

My Life On The Margin With AB

Before strictly and before political punditry, John Sergeant starred in Alan Bennett’s only TV sketch show in 1966. It is one of his fondest memories.

A Polemicist In The Pink

The former newspaper editor and dandy Sir Peregrine Worsthorne is 93 – and he’s never been happier. Valerie Grove met him at his beautifully ramshackle Old Rectory home.

The Sunny Side Of Britain's Gloomiest Actor

Geoffrey Palmer is ninety and has been amusing us for more than six decades, on TV, film and stage. Valerie Grove took him to lunch in Highgate.

Paradis Perdu

In the 1990s, Roger Lewis lived in Normandy full time with his family. Now they have returned – to find all is not quite as delightful as it was

Alice In Wonderland Windows, Daresbury

There are some entrancingly unexpected stained-glass windows of Alice in Wonderland to be found in All Saints’ Church at Daresbury in Cheshire.

The Corncrake

The corncrake’s Latin name, Crex crex, echoes the rasping and insistent call of the males by day and especially night, most regularly in May and June.

the story of the oldie

the first issue of this magazine appeared on 21st february 1992. stephen glover looks back on its 25 years.

moralist, monarchist and brexiteer-in-chief

paul dacre is editor of the daily mail, the most powerful newspaper in the country. but who is he?

italy's populist firebrand

nicholas farrell profiles beppe grillo, the italian former stand-up comedian who is making traditional politicians quake.

I Have Come To Understand Her In A Way I Found Difficult In Real Life

Sally Phipps describes the sometimes strange process of writing the biography of her mother, the Anglo-Irish novelist Molly Keane.

Small But Perfect

Most people fly into Luxembourg for a business meeting and fly straight out again. But they are missing a treat, says William Cook

The Dark Side Of Radio One

Craig Brown loved listening to the station when it began, 50 years ago. But beneath the DJs’ cheesy grins, there lurked malice and paranoia.

Painting Paddy's Greece

Katyuli Lloyd was 20 when she met her hero Patrick Leigh Fermor. What a joy then to illustrate new editions of his books.

Soho's Ruthless Genius

Christopher Howse remembers his friend and drinking partner Jeffrey Bernard, who died 20 years ago this month, aged 65.

The Prisoner's Welsh Holiday Home

The cult TV series is celebrating its 50th birthday. Deborah Maby returns to its setting, the fantasy village of Portmeirion, where she grew up.

The Dairy At Ham

There are surely few rooms in England that seem as enchanted as the 18th century dairy at Ham House in Richmond, Surrey.

The Lure of the Bullfight

When a bullfighter was gored to death in July, animal-rights activists and the British press cheered. But, says Henry Jeffreys, to understand Spain you have to experience the sublime artistry of the bullring.