Getting a telling off from your children is one of those parental rites of...
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out in London" column.I am still thinking about an article that appeared in the Guardian last week – and, judging by the way it hung about in the “most read” online chart...
View ArticleThese boots weren’t made for walking – they were made for moaning about
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.Another pair of boots has bitten the dust. I was crossing Paddington Street during the cold snap and felt a draught in the side of my foot. I am used to feeling...
View ArticleA lesson can be learned from the violent death of my old friend Mousie
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.I have always rather liked the picture of me that appears in the paper edition of this magazine – insofar as I am capable of liking a byline picture of myself –...
View ArticleOutside the Tube, I was nearly knocked over by the wind. Is Cameron in...
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.Just as Samuel L Jackson’s character in Snakes on a Plane eventually wearies of those snakes on that plane and expresses himself in extremely colourful language,...
View ArticleHow to be classy, even when you’re teetering on the edge of the precariat
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.In a few weeks’ time, I’m going to be 50. Fifty! There was a time when I thought I wouldn’t make it, or that it would be a fine time to call it a day, but that...
View ArticleEvery good Hovel has a secret room (ashtray included)
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.I gather that a fairly common dream involves discovering a multitude of hitherto hidden rooms in your place of abode. What these dreams represent or say of your...
View ArticleMy selfish shellfish behavior has ensured the farmers’ market is no longer my...
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.My editor communicated a heartfelt request that this column should be a Thatcher-free zone but she needn’t have worried: I have heavier matters on my heart....
View ArticleIf you want your hair cut well, opt for a bald-headed barber – preferably...
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.Walking to the Tube, I fall into step with Tony, the barber. Tony ticks all the right boxes when it comes to the men to whom I entrust my thinning, grizzled...
View ArticleFrom dressing gowns at noon to dressing-downs at the post office ... and so...
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.All book reviewers know by heart George Orwell’s essay “Confessions of a Book Reviewer”. Find one now, go on, and watch his or her lips move in unison with yours...
View ArticleHow I nearly spent £180,000 on revolting champagne glasses
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.An email from the Shop Selling Expensive Wank down the road. Readers of this column whose minds are capable of retaining items of debatable nutritional worth...
View ArticleNever apologise, even when you meet your victim at a folk-dancing wedding
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.One of the interesting side effects of separation from the family environment is that I find myself mixing with a rather younger age group. A few years ago, it...
View ArticleI’ve got the New York bug – and it turns out the condition is hereditary
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.So it looks as though I am going to be going to New York again. My mother, who left Manhattan to be with my father over half a century ago, still feels the pull...
View ArticleWet, broke and ill in New York – but it’s good to see my old pal Razors
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.So, here I am in New York, shivering and sweating with a lurgy in my old pal Razors’ apartment, digesting the news that, thanks to the reluctance of an accounts...
View ArticleHitchcock has nothing on Charles Saatchi in his power to deeply disturb
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.Back from New York and I discover that once again summer has failed to materialise. It had all been so tantalising on the way out: the trees on the A312, which...
View ArticleLesson one of living together: know when to keep your mouth shut
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.So it is now about two months since the Beloved moved into the Hovel but who’s counting? Bar an unfortunate interregnum of my own misguided advising, we have...
View ArticleI can’t apologise for all my drunken exploits – it would take years
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.Arecherché little launch for a book, itself of no great import, but it is the party season, which is good news for the thirsty freelance hack on a tight budget....
View ArticleClotted cream, cooing pigeons, vengeful croquet – I’m living the English...
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.So, I am enjoying a pot of Assam and a scone heaped with jam and clotted cream, on the terrace of the tearooms at Hidcote Manor Garden, Glos, and, as so many men...
View ArticleSummer is here, with its insufferable rich people and A-level results
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column.Afriend of mine announces on Facebook that the other day the cashier at the bank shoved over a slip of paper that indicated he was £96,900 in credit. “Just for a...
View ArticleThere’s only one word for this sleep-depriving heat: “stiffling” (look it up)
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column. There’s only one word for this sleep-depriving heat: “stiffling” (look it up) A friend tells me he has been unable to sleep in this hot weather. Another friend...
View ArticleI’m having another holiday in the garden - leaving the country is just too hard
Nicholas Lezard's "Down and Out" column. I am trying to think of the last time I took a holiday. A proper holiday, two weeks in a warm and sunny place, which means abroad. Somewhere with, at the very...
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