Sean Thomas

America’s fierce guilt for slavery is understandable – we mustn’t import it

11 July 2023 10:53 pm

I love American roadtrips. They are the ideal way to visit 96 per cent of the country, which is determinedly…

UFOs or not – something is up

25 June 2023 2:02 am

As famous capital cities of world-straddling superpowers go, Washington DC is somewhat disappointing. The grandiose urbanism is surely meant to…

Why do we never talk about Islamic slavery?

13 June 2023 7:15 pm

The beautiful Siwa Oasis in the far western deserts of Egypt is a remarkable place, for multiple reasons. It’s probably been inhabited, continuously,…

Passport stamps

10 June 2023 9:00 am

Writers are doomed to fail in their war against AI

15 May 2023 11:11 pm

It’s a cliché of publishing that men over the age of 40 only read military history. In my case it’s not…

I demand reparations for my ancestors’ fall from grace

6 May 2023 9:00 am

I demand reparations for my ancestors’ fall from grace

Why now is the time to visit Bangkok

24 April 2023 1:27 am

In the deliciously darkened corners of the Vesper cocktail bar, in the central quartier of the Siamese capital known as Silom, the…

Hola, here’s the first Brexit Benefit

6 April 2023 12:17 am

Whenever Brexit is discussed these days, you will nearly always find a splenetic or exultant Remainer asking, often in a…

AI is the death of porn

1 April 2023 7:00 pm

I have a friend, let’s call her Ellie, who has a diverting side hustle: she sells erotic images of herself…

The decline and fall of urban America

1 April 2023 9:00 am

The death of the American city

How we forgot about Pol Pot

4 March 2023 5:30 pm

When I was a small boy, I had a favourite book: The Magic Faraway Tree, by Enid Blyton. Given that my…

East Asia’s mask obsession is a catastrophe the West must avoid

24 January 2023 2:00 am

In the Red Square Rooftop Vodka Bar of the sleekly towering Novotel Hotel, on soi 4, Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok, it…

Antarctica: the best journey in the world

17 December 2022 9:00 am

Nothing compares with Antarctica

How Australian rock art warns us about 2023

10 December 2022 5:00 pm

If you had to choose an obvious place to look for clues about what will happen in the coming year,…

Why is The New York Times so obsessed with loathing Britain?

5 August 2022 12:05 am

They’ve done it again in the grey building on 826 Eighth Avenue, New York City, NY, USA. They – the…

An existential war: even wealthy émigrés are prepared to fight for Russia

9 July 2022 9:00 am

Even wealthy émigrés are prepared to fight for Russia

How Boris Johnson changed my life

8 July 2022 11:57 pm

Over the coming weeks we will be regaled with dozens of personal recollections, from around the world, of the man…

Is there a British version of America’s attachment to guns?

19 June 2022 6:00 pm

Now that the horror of the Uvalde school shooting in Texas has begun to ebb away, as it always does,…

Is an unknown, extraordinarily ancient civilisation buried under eastern Turkey?

8 May 2022 6:00 pm

I am staring at about a dozen, stiff, eight-foot high, orange-red penises, carved from living bedrock, and semi-enclosed in an…

Can you tell which of these artworks was created by a computer?

23 April 2022 9:00 am

Will AI change painting — or destroy it?

Rebuild our cities

3 April 2022 8:19 pm

For an ancient city with an illustrious industrial history, Derby doesn’t get much attention. But it does boast at least…

Why work from home when you can work from paradise?

26 February 2022 9:00 am

Why work from home when you can work from paradise?

What the Capitol riots and the plot to stop Brexit have in common

7 January 2022 6:50 pm

It’s not often that browsing the genteel aisles of Waterstones reminds you of madmen storming the Capitol in buffalo-horn helmets,…

What if wokeness really is the new Christianity?

1 November 2021 9:04 am

Have you had a conversation about The Wokeness recently? If you’re anything like me, you’ll have had a few. And…

We need to find the muscle memory of Western greatness

29 August 2021 9:31 am

Like millions around the world, I have spent recent days watching – sometimes forcing myself to watch – these images…