CATEGORIES

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

The end of the press as we know it?

A collapse in sales and adverts will destroy some papers and magazines

We will meet again

Dame Vera Lynn on coronavirus, the Queen and the 75th anniversary of VE Day

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

The ‘brain statin' quest

A treatment to delay – and even stop – dementia is on its way, says David Cameron

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

Nightingale's journey

200 years after she was born in Florence, Mark Bostridge follows in Florence Nightingale’s footsteps, from Scutari to Harley Street

From here to immunity

There’s no quick way out of the coronavirus pandemic. Vaccines need money, time and luck, says Florence Walker

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

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

Shaken, not stirred, by 007

And Mary Clive recalls a disastrous 1938 holiday in Capri with a sunburnt Fleming

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

Dear Papa – cook, musician, Oldie editor

My father, Alexander Chancellor, former editor of The Oldie, would have turned 80 this year.

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

Cub reporters

School magazines trained writers – from Philip Larkin to Harold Pinter – since 1786 but they’re now in decline, says Arnold Harvey

From the '20s smart set...

As Belgravia begins on TV, Simon Williams recalls the London of Upstairs, Downstairs

Bond, Uncle Bond

As the 25th Bond film comes out, Kate Grimond remembers Ian Fleming – her prescient, funny, diffident uncle

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

...To the private jet set

While Eleanor Doughty tours modern Belgravia, home to international plutocrats

…And the oldie way

Being past your sexual ‘prime’ doesn’t mean you lose your appetite for sex. Far from it, says Florence Walker

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

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

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

My Oxford blues

Classics don John Davie laments a tragic decline in rigour, language skills and essay-writing, disguised by rampant grade inflation

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

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

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

Finding love the new way…

As Valentine’s Day looms, Olivia Utley, 26, says internet dates still produce true romance

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

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