Culture
The Oldie Magazine
Young Fogeys grow old gracefully
In the 1980s, Will Self mocked journalists who worshipped the past. But they’ve remained ageless, while he’s become a burnt-out shell
4 min |
May 2020
The Oldie Magazine
The end of the press as we know it?
A collapse in sales and adverts will destroy some papers and magazines
4 min |
May 2020
The Oldie Magazine
We will meet again
Dame Vera Lynn on coronavirus, the Queen and the 75th anniversary of VE Day
5 min |
May 2020
The Oldie Magazine
Voyage of the Beagle
Charles Darwin adored the tiny, mahogany rich ship that carried him around the world and made his name, writes Sara Wheeler
5 min |
May 2020
The Oldie Magazine
The ‘brain statin' quest
A treatment to delay – and even stop – dementia is on its way, says David Cameron
4 min |
May 2020
The Oldie Magazine
La dolce vita goes on in the face of death
Italy is in agony but expats will always adore its beauty – and its songs, says Mary Kenny
4 min |
May 2020
The Oldie Magazine
Nightingale's journey
200 years after she was born in Florence, Mark Bostridge follows in Florence Nightingale’s footsteps, from Scutari to Harley Street
5 min |
May 2020
The Oldie Magazine
From here to immunity
There’s no quick way out of the coronavirus pandemic. Vaccines need money, time and luck, says Florence Walker
4 min |
May 2020
The Oldie Magazine
Bee home and bee safe
With its Doric pilasters and Gothic arches, this queen of bee houses is so precious that it’s a listed building, blessed by a bishop
5 min |
May 2020
The Oldie Magazine
Don't Be Grumpy – Be Happy
As we get older, it’s easy to whinge and scowl, says Lucy Deedes. Much better to avoid confrontation, smile and accept life’s little let-downs
4 min |
The Oldie magazine - April issue (386)
The Oldie Magazine
Shaken, not stirred, by 007
And Mary Clive recalls a disastrous 1938 holiday in Capri with a sunburnt Fleming
6 min |
The Oldie magazine - April issue (386)
The Oldie Magazine
War correspondence
Roger Mortimer (1909-91), later the Sunday Times racing correspondent and author of the Dear Lupin letters, was captured by the Germans in Belgium in 1940. For five years, he was incarcerated in four different prisoner-of-war camps. There he wrote a series of charming letters to Peggy Dunne, an old friend
5 min |
The Oldie magazine - April issue (386)
The Oldie Magazine
Dear Papa – cook, musician, Oldie editor
My father, Alexander Chancellor, former editor of The Oldie, would have turned 80 this year.
2 min |
The Oldie magazine - April issue (386)
The Oldie Magazine
Farewell to the full Monty
Michael Palin mourns Terry Jones, his fellow Python, and tells Harry Mount about his own brush with the Grim Reaper
8 min |
The Oldie magazine - April issue (386)
The Oldie Magazine
Cub reporters
School magazines trained writers – from Philip Larkin to Harold Pinter – since 1786 but they’re now in decline, says Arnold Harvey
3 min |
The Oldie magazine - April issue (386)
The Oldie Magazine
From the '20s smart set...
As Belgravia begins on TV, Simon Williams recalls the London of Upstairs, Downstairs
3 min |
The Oldie magazine - April issue (386)
The Oldie Magazine
Bond, Uncle Bond
As the 25th Bond film comes out, Kate Grimond remembers Ian Fleming – her prescient, funny, diffident uncle
4 min |
The Oldie magazine - April issue (386)
The Oldie Magazine
Death of De'Ath
Melvyn Bragg, who worked at the BBC with Wilfred in the ’60s, was saddened by his fall from grace – and kept him solvent in later years
3 min |
The Oldie magazine - April issue (386)
The Oldie Magazine
...To the private jet set
While Eleanor Doughty tours modern Belgravia, home to international plutocrats
4 min |
The Oldie magazine - April issue (386)
The Oldie Magazine
…And the oldie way
Being past your sexual ‘prime’ doesn’t mean you lose your appetite for sex. Far from it, says Florence Walker
3 min |
March 2020
The Oldie Magazine
Westminster's cartoon comedy
Forty years ago, Gerald Scarfe drew the opening titles for Yes Minister. The show never dates, thanks to the script and the brilliant actors
2 min |
March 2020
The Oldie Magazine
Thinking inside the box
Miriam Gross says oldies shouldn’t be snobbish about Netflix. It is cheap and convenient – and produces greater art than cinema and theatre
4 min |
March 2020
The Oldie Magazine
Still lazy after all these years
Rowley Leigh is a terrible sloth. He chose an arduous life as a chef and restaurateur because it’s the only job that forced him to work hard
2 min |
March 2020
The Oldie Magazine
My Oxford blues
Classics don John Davie laments a tragic decline in rigour, language skills and essay-writing, disguised by rampant grade inflation
3 min |
March 2020
The Oldie Magazine
My dad is a Catholic priest Pope
Benedict XVI shouldn’t worry about celibacy. Benedict King’s father is a better priest because he’s married with five children
4 min |
March 2020
The Oldie Magazine
I'm a devoted moth-er
Caroline Moore, who’s recorded 850 moth species in her Sussex garden, sings the praises of her five favourite finds
5 min |
March 2020
The Oldie Magazine
Goodbye and good luck
Harry Mount has seen how useful royal etiquette was for Prince Harry and Prince Charles. The Sussexes face an exposed life without it
3 min |
March 2020
The Oldie Magazine
Finding love the new way…
As Valentine’s Day looms, Olivia Utley, 26, says internet dates still produce true romance
3 min |
March 2020
The Oldie Magazine
A Gay PC – When Being Gay Wasn't PC
Stephen Bourne remembers E M Forster’s lover, who befriended the Bloomsbury Group and inspired Dixon of Dock Green
5 min |
December 2019
The Oldie Magazine
The Pope's Latin Teacher
Father Reginald Foster advised four Popes on Latin for 40 years. As he turns 80, he’s now teaching Katie Walker in his native Milwaukee
6 min |