Nicholas Shakespeare (@dolphinsands) / X

Nicholas Shakespeare

13.1K posts

Nicholas Shakespeare

@dolphinsands

Novelist & biographer (Bruce Chatwin, Ian Fleming), Tasmaniac, latent fisherman & retriever lover, married to an Icelandic-Canadian, two tall sons.

Tisbury & Dolphin Sands

nicholasshakespeare.com

Joined August 2010

Pinned
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Apr 24
Finished copy of my new novel has arrived. Pub date 14 May. I began it in 2019 but was interrupted by Ian Fleming, since when events in the US have come to mimic the plot.
31K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Aug 8, 2024
An immigrant surgeon has just given me a knee replacement, an immigrant nurse took my blood, an immigrant nurse took my X-rays, an immigrant physio helped me to exercise, an immigrant cook fed me. I would be nowhere and nothing without immigrants. Thank you to all of them.
4.7M
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
May 20, 2024
My son this afternoon on learning that he has graduated with highest honours from Harvard
176K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Jul 9, 2023
This interview is devastating. Kennedy comes across as vain, narcissistic, ignorant, boastful, stupid, voraciously unread, with the certainties of an over-privileged ex-heroin junkie who is fatally addicted to himself.
The Alternative Facts of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
From newyorker.com
880K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Jun 16, 2023
In almost my last conversation with John le Carre, he talked of Johnson, whose actions had driven him to seek Irish citizenship. "Without being too dramatic, he is almost evil. He doesn’t seem to care about the consequences, which is a primary qualification for psychopathy."
364K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Sep 5, 2025
Does anyone feel queasy about Angela Rayner's resignation? Her breach of code seems small beer when set against the Lord Bamford-sized breweries of Boris Johnson, Michelle Mone, Nadhim Zahawi etc., etc., etc
154K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Apr 17, 2022
"I think we're in the most severe constitutional crisis involving a PM I can remember... the great debaser in modern times.. the first law-breaker to occupy the premiership... the Queen's First Minister is beyond doubt a rogue prime minister." Peter Hennessy on #BBCR4
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Jun 16, 2024
Happy Father’s Day to my 94-year-old dad, seen here last night before a dinner at Trinity, his old Oxford college. He had rooms on the top floor directly behind him, 75 years ago.
62K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Sep 14, 2023
An advanced copy has arrived. Only another author knows the density of this moment. To hold four years of your life in your hand, reduced to a book - in this case the first authorised life of Ian Fleming since 1966.
211K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Jan 22, 2023
My 92-year old father in the incomparable quad at All Souls, on his way to dine last night with the Marshall Foch Professor of French. He’s one of the oldest living Oxford Modern Languages graduates, surviving his friend David Cornwell (John le Carre), who was in the year below.
159K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Apr 5, 2024
The courage of William Wragg, the fidelity of Boris Johnson, the intelligence of Jonathan Gullis, the integrity, professionalism and accountability of Rishi Sunak, and so it goes, on and on and on and on.
105K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Jul 4, 2024
Fry is right. Brexit ruined Britain, the Conservative Party, our sense of humour, our relations with our closest neighbours, our sense of optimism, our confidence, our culture, our finances, our sense of nationality, our place in the world - basically everything really.
Martin Davies 🇬🇧 🇫🇷 🇪🇺 🇨🇦
@martindvz
Jul 3, 2024
47K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Jun 16, 2024
Brexit ruined Britain, the Conservative Party, our sense of humour, our relations with our closest neighbours, our sense of optimism, our confidence, our culture, our finances, our sense of nationality, our place in the world - basically everything really.
170K
Nicholas Shakespeare
@dolphinsands
Nov 21, 2023
"As O’Brien writes, not only has Brexit been a disaster; much of Britain’s infrastructure now appears to be broken. We are indeed led by donkeys. The press is frequently a disgrace. In public life, facts no longer matter. Shame is extinct."
How They Broke Britain by James O’Brien review – a catalogue of disasters
From theguardian.com
73K