Rachel Johnson

All Hail the Queen Mary 2

There’s a lot to love about traveling from New York to London by boat. Just don’t forget the tuxedo … Reading Time: 6 minutes I traveled from London to New York in November of 2019 and December of 2022. The westbound legs took eight hours, 15 minutes…

Say hello to the 'meno belly', says Rachel Johnson

Like my friend Alexandra Shulman of this parish, I suffer (if that’s the right word) from a rare syndrome that we have decided is called ‘body eumorphia’. A rich and strange condition among us women, this condition means when we look in the…

Golden Oldies by Rachel Johnson - Avatars: nearly live music

Golden Oldies RACHEL JOHNSON Avatars – nearly live music Video was supposed to have killed the radio star. But who last slotted a video cassette tape into a clunky player, eh? And now radio and audio are totes boomtastic, thanks to the smartphone. S…

The ruthless guide to New Year's Eve parties by Rachel Johnson

Take from my three score years and ten a half century and – as A E Housman might have put it – that only leaves twenty more New Year's Eves. I do not want to fritter my last remaining evenings in December in the nether regions of West End ‘eateries’,…

What I listen to every Christmas: Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood made my children forget toys and presents for a minute

For our family, this is as much a part of Christmas as a Festival of Ten Lessons and Carols from Kings There isn’t a book that I always return to at this, the most wonderful time of year, as the jingle-till muzak has it. Having said that, my husband…

‘How I lost weight the French way’

My husband — Mr Dawnay — likes to tease me about my travel preferences (if not requirements): swimming in the sea; delicious food I haven’t had to cook myself; unspoilt scenery — basically bathing not just in nature but in beauty. “Your year is never…

Fear, loathing and Labradors: Rachel Johnson’s memories of The Lady

I’ll always remember where I was when I heard that The Lady had a new editor. The quiet carriage on the 10.28 to Cheltenham Spa on Wednesday. Still, I screamed out loud. “Not another one!” I squealed and then, “Who did you say?” As a former editor of…

Yoga has become a hot cultish mess

Ommm… are you in the lotus position? Then I’ll begin. The studio was literally Hades, four industrial heaters blasting in each corner. We were crouching on our knees, sweat dripping, foreheads to the floor. It was a weekday morning. Then our…

They do things differently in the Cotswolds

CommentsShare The Season has ended and – apart from The Spectator’s summer bash of course – the two bang-up parties of July were discos in the Cotswolds. They do things differently there. At Jemima Goldsmith’s I danced so hard in high heels with a…

Long live the rock dinosaurs!

When the Oldie changed ‘leadership’ a few years back I swooped on the new editor, young Harry Mount, like a seagull on a chip. ‘The one thing your great organ is missing is a pop critic!’ I lectured him. The average age of the reader was…

I’m sick of these pointless, routine-destroying bank holidays

Bank holidays. How I hate them, but never more so than this year when we have nine – NINE – morale-sapping, GDP-crushing, government-mandated days “off” (off from what? you cry, and we will come to that shortly). Yes, I hate bank holidays, especially…

The Beatles v The Stones - Rachel Johnson

Rachel Johnson is hard put to decide between the two epic bands from the sixties Since the sixties, anyone with a pulse has been either a Stones or a Beatles person. This division – far more than Blur v Oasis – was and is the great cleavage of rock…

Master’s of the House

Studying the grandest estates in England used to be an extra-curricular activity. Now, at some universities, it’s the main event Reading Time: 4 minutes You’ve watched Downton (filmed at Highclere Castle, Berkshire); you’ve done at least one season…

The Rules Still Apply

There they were. In London’s trendy Notting Hill Gate the other day. Posters with the identical red sheep jersey—rows of white sheep, interrupted by one lone black sheep—that Princess Diana used to wear to polo matches over a frilly piecrust collar…

In defence of my brother Boris

As you might have guessed, it hasn't been the calmest, quietest weeks in the Johnson family, and lots of broadcasters – the BBC among them – have asked me to contribute on events across Westminster, and, of course, the repercussions across the…

Pandemic puppy love after months of grief

Having faced personal loss, Rachel Johnson hatched a plan to make her dog Ziggy a mother Last month I came down to the kitchen and screamed. Ziggy — my pregnant cockapoo, panic-bought just before lockdown — was sitting up, between two small black…

It’s hard not to pity Ghislaine Maxwell

This week, I’m having puppies! First litter! The Johnsons were not doggy as we always moved around too much (my late mother claims it was 32 times in 17 years), but once you have a dog, life seems boring without. I have a theory that children give…

Rachel Johnson: My grandfather’s gran was a slave, and better off for it

While researching her ancestors for a TV documentary, Rachel Johnson found that, for 19th-century refugees from the Caucasus, white slavery offered stability and security It has always tickled my husband — whose aristocratic forebears came over with…

On court with Cameron Norrie: Rachel Johnson meets the Indian Wells champion

Two weeks ago, British tennis ace Cameron Norrie won the ‘fifth grand slam’ in California and is now ranked 16th in the world. Alongside Emma Raducanu he’s the new Brit star of the game. So can he handle Rachel Johnson – on and off court? Two…

How much ‘Tory Energy’ has your house got?

Until this week, I prided myself that my house in west London was a unique personal showcase of boho shabby chic – filled with paintings, books, and the impedimenta of a life well lived, as the obituary pages so often put it. I assumed a perfect…