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Flora Watkins

Flora Watkins

The Spectator

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Rock ‘n’ roll will survive the digital age

As the echoey, descending riff of ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ reverberates around Donington Park, I am shoved abruptly through a Proustian...

latest 10

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Notes on... / Tequila slammers all around!

‘Tequila, it makes me happy,/ Con Tequila it feels fine’ goes the student anthem by Terrorvision. It is midnight, somewhere around the turn of the...

26.06.2026 10

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Tequila slammers all round!

‘Tequila, it makes me happy,/ Con Tequila it feels fine’ goes the student anthem by Terrorvision. It is midnight, somewhere around the turn of the...

04.06.2026 10

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

The National Garden Scheme is the perfect antidote to Chelsea’s vanity

Shortly before the New Gardens Organiser at the National Garden Scheme (NGS) is due to arrive at our farmhouse in north Norfolk, my youngest child –...

23.05.2026 20

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Open season / The National Garden Scheme is the perfect antidote to Chelsea’s vanity

Shortly before the New Gardens Organiser at the National Garden Scheme (NGS) is due to arrive at our farmhouse in north Norfolk, my youngest child –...

22.05.2026 10

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Open season / The National Garden Scheme is the perfect antidote to Chelsea’s vanity

Shortly before the New Gardens Organiser at the National Garden Scheme (NGS) is due to arrive at our farmhouse in north Norfolk, my youngest child –...

21.05.2026 20

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Chelsea Flower Show has lost its way

It’s Chelsea week – officially the start of the Season – so brace yourself for acres of breathy coverage and All The Tropes from SW3. The...

18.05.2026 20

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Happy 40th birthday to M&S’s ‘gin in a tin’

Cast your minds back, if you can, to 1986. A different era. The nation rejoiced as a jolly redhead married the Queen’s favourite son. Britain had a...

29.04.2026 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

National Theft / The disappointment of a National Trust café

In his novel Coming up for Air (1939), George Orwell has his benighted protagonist, George Bowling, bite into a sausage, only to discover that...

06.04.2026 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

The disappointment of a National Trust café

In his novel Coming up for Air (1939), George Orwell has his benighted protagonist, George Bowling, bite into a sausage, only to discover that...

06.04.2026 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Dried paint / Farrow & Ball is finished

In PR terms, it’s a such a well-worn trajectory, it has its own name. ‘Doing a Burberry’ is the term...

29.03.2026 60

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Farrow & Ball is finished

In PR terms, it’s a such a well-worn trajectory, it has its own name. ‘Doing a Burberry’ is the term...

29.03.2026 40

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

I’m a Screen Grinch – and proud

He’s 12 next month, my eldest son, but he’s rejected the ‘movie night’ party I’ve suggested, and he doesn’t want any of his new friends...

12.03.2026 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

How to pay the school fees - a literary guide

Another day, another report on how many children have had to leave their private schools, thanks to Labour’s VAT raid on fees. This particular...

11.03.2026 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

The 'slimmed down' monarchy is fast disappearing

Reports that Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have been banned from the Royal Ascot carriage procession raise an important question: what is...

04.03.2026 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Andrew, Queen Elizabeth and the pitfalls of ‘gentle parenting’

It was the sort of elaborate birthday surprise that Andrew — practical joker and fond of a fart gag — might have arranged to prank a friend. Six...

21.02.2026 100

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Andrew, the Queen and the pitfalls of ‘gentle parenting’

It was the sort of elaborate birthday surprise that Andrew — practical joker and fond of a fart gag — might have arranged to prank a friend. Six...

20.02.2026 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Fast-forward / Don’t bring back cassette tapes

04.02.2026 20

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Candlemas cheer / Why I’m keeping my Christmas decorations up until February

14.01.2026 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

I'll miss the unintended hilarity of the round robin

11.12.2025 20

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Record keeping / Bring back the album

08.12.2025 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Bring back the album

04.12.2025 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Heart brake / My toxic affair with my Land Rover

10.10.2025 20

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

My toxic affair with my Land Rover

09.10.2025 20

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Class apart / Back-to-school photos have become a vulgar wealth flex

09.09.2025 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Pity the poor offspring of the pushy Pollys

05.09.2025 40

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Oasis nostalgia is a form of mass delusion

02.07.2025 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Welly woes / No, I’m not going to bloody Glasto

25.06.2025 40

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Rural horror / Suburbanites vs the countryside

20.06.2025 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Rural horror / Suburbanites vs the countryside

19.06.2025 20

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Rural horror / Suburbanites vs the countryside

19.06.2025 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Suburbanites vs the countryside

19.06.2025 40

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Past caring / What was so great about the 1990s?

28.05.2025 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins

Why the middle classes are giving up on the slopes

27.04.2025 30

The Spectator

Flora Watkins