You can’t cancel Picasso
In the sunlit courtyard of the Picasso Museum in Málaga, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso is telling me about his grandfather, the greatest…
How the British intelligentsia fell out of love with Germany
The love affair between Britain and Germany is over
A guide to Basel’s artistic delights
Standing on the quayside beside the River Rhine, gazing at the happy teenagers swimming in the dark water down below,…
The rise and fall of bohemia
In the Kunsthalle Praha, a smart new gallery in Prague, a Scottish professor from UCLA called Russell Ferguson is trying…
Dresden’s Rumpelstiltskin and the strange tale of European porcelain
Strolling along Dresden’s Brühlsche Terrasse, an elegant promenade above the River Elbe known as ‘the balcony of Europe’, the wartime…
How Dickens invented Christmas
Time was, the Christmas shopping season used to last a week or two. Now it drags on for months. Never…
Why Germany shouldn’t cancel Bismarck
What’s in a name? On the face of it, the Bismarck-Zimmer in Berlin’s Foreign Ministry building looks like just another…
What will be the legacy of the Qatar World Cup?
In the glitzy Fifa museum, in squeaky-clean downtown Zurich, there is a new exhibition which sums up the upbeat, inclusive…
Why the Baltics fear Russia
In the historic heart of Riga, Latvia’s lively capital, there is a building that reveals why the Baltic States remain…
The halcyon days of Anglo-German relations
In Brenners, Germany’s grandest grand hotel, in Baden-Baden, Germany’s smartest spa town, there’s a corner of a foreign drawing room…
How to read Ulysses
In the labyrinthine basement studio of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, Irish actor Barry McGovern is doing something that would be inconceivable…
The timeless mystery of Charlie Chaplin
Eleven years ago, I was summoned to the Manoir de Ban, a huge white house overlooking Lake Geneva, to meet…
The very American heroism of Todd Beamer
Twenty years ago today, on the morning of 11 September 2001, 32-year-old Todd Beamer boarded a United Airlines flight at Newark,…
The Vienna attack is a bitter blow for Sebastian Kurz
With Austria’s latest Covid lockdown due to begin at midnight, Viennese citizens were enjoying a final night of freedom. And…
Never a dull sentence: the journalism of Harry Perry Robinson
Is Boris Johnson a fan of Harry Perry Robinson? If he isn’t, he really ought to be. Reading this absorbing…
Online chess is the ultimate lockdown sport
How have you been filling these listless homebound hours we’ve been given by the government? I’ve been frittering them away…
This crisis could be the catalyst for a golden age of British theatre
The coronavirus crisis offers theatre a golden opportunity to break free of the structures that have held it back for years, says William Cook
Germans can laugh at Fawlty Towers, so why can't Brits?
Now UKTV (owned by the BBC) has removed the classic ‘Germans’ episode of Fawlty Towers from its playlist, this sorry…
I’m walking round Britain – in my back garden
What’s the best way to keep in shape during the lockdown? That’s the First World problem I’ve been using to…
Welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – Billy Connolly interviewed
William Cook talks to Billy Connolly – welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – about growing up in Glasgow, ditching the mike stand and living with Parkinson’s
Isolation forces us to work out what really matters
In tough times, people often discover their dauntlessness
Is there any better place for an EU-subsidised arts festival than Galway?
I was still digesting my delicious breakfast (kippers, poached eggs and soda bread — all local) when the sad news…
Is St Edmund’s body buried beneath a Suffolk tennis court?
Here in St Edmundsbury cathedral, a bunch of clerics and local bigwigs are preparing for a most unusual anniversary. Throughout…
Tsar quality: the charm of Tbilisi
‘These regions are not under the control of the central government,’ reads a warning on a map of Georgia in…
The Grand Union Canal, a serene sanctuary amid the urban sprawl
It was a Saturday afternoon in September, the end of summer, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I’d gone…
