The Oldie

The idea for the Oldie was cooked up 25 years ago by its founding editor, Richard Ingrams, and his much-lamented successor, the late Alexander Chancellor. Their aim was to create a free-thinking, funny magazine, a light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity. The Oldie is ageless and timeless, free of retirement advice, crammed with rejuvenating wit, intelligence and delight. With over 100 pages in every issue, The Oldie is packed with funny cartoons and free-thinking and intelligent articles covering a wide range of topics – from gardening and books to travel, arts, entertainment, and so much more.

The Oldie

Among this month’s contributors

The Old Un’s Notes

NOT MANY DEAD • Important stories you may have missed

Happy 100th, Winnie-the-Pooh! • Gyles Brandreth salutes A A Milne and the lovable bear he created a century ago

Storm in a D cup • My contribution to world literature? A book about Page 3 Girls

OLDEN LIFE

MODERN LIFE

Dad’s lyrical genius • Danielle Kretzmer-Lockwood salutes her father, Herbert Kretzmer, writer of Les Mis

Broadcast news • Top tips on how to do an interview and how to speak proper.

Don’t worry. Do nothing • Action is not the best policy. Dynamic Intertia has solved all Matthew Fort’s problems

In the club • A new book by Andrew Jones captures the secret corners of London’s clubs. Photos

What the cleaner saw • Ruby Lewis cleans up after her bosses’ dirty habits - from sex to booze to extreme cheese consumption

Poor country mice • Annabel Venning wishes she’d never left London. It would have been the ideal place for her rural children to start their careers

In good voice • Andrew Roberts salutes the great voice-over artists, from Frank Muir to Kenneth Williams

RIP handwriting • Quentin Letts loves the dying art - and how it reveals the writer’s character

The Army game • Ever since he was a child, Piers Pottinger has adored military entertainment

Funerals to die for • Rev Michael Coren has conducted dozens of services - from the tragicomic to the heartbreakingly moving

The Noël Coward Guide to Grooming • The Master’s bathroom cabinet was blissfully free of vanity products

Louis MacNeice’s ode to autumn • His masterpiece was a superb picture of 1939, the last year of peace

Artificial Intelligence vs My Intelligence

Sun, sea and Generation Z

Even Rachel Thieves can’t steal my dolce vita

Guinness was good for Dubliners • Mary Kenny admires the brewers, stars of a new Netflix series

Mother’s disastrous miracle cure • Typical! Just when I finally get her a doctor’s appointment, she rises from the dead

The poetry of English history • Historians can learn from Auden, Kipling and Shakespeare

School’s out for summer, thank God!

Rembrandt’s painful masterpiece

Duff Hart-Davis (1936-2025)

The fall of man - and woman • As your muscle mass decreases in old age, you lose your balance

Tito

My chocolate Battle of Hastings

READERS’ LETTERS

Mother’s ruin

Woody fights back

Magnificent man

Cold War bore

Genius of Spark

McEwan’s brainy brew

Commonplace Corner

RANT

FILM

THEATRE

RADIO

TELEVISION

MUSIC

GOLDEN OLDIES

EXHIBITIONS

GARDENING

KITCHEN GARDEN

COOKERY

RESTAURANTS

DRINK

SPORT

MOTORING

Last edition of the phone book

Centrica goes nuclear

Pochard

Last chance saloon • A century ago, the Locarno Pact was meant to stop the Second World War. William Cook visits the...