Features
The joy of guided walks
‘You should be pointing at things with an umbrella for a living,’ said my brother. He’d come to visit me…
The Oxford Union’s lynch-mob mentality
The case of George Abaraonye, the incoming Oxford Union president who rejoiced in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, has provoked…
Never date a German man
Call me unpatriotic but, although I’m German, nothing could ever have persuaded me to date a German man. I married…
‘Like a cockroach, I refuse to die’: a meeting with the Tate brothers
‘I detest lateness,’ texts Tristan Tate, who’s offered to pick me up from a hotel in Bucharest. ‘So I’ll either…
The rise of performative reading
‘To be or not to be’ may be the question but when it comes to eliciting answers, I’ve always preferred…
The cultification of science
My, how we all laughed. Thirty years ago the physicist Alan Sokal hoaxed a social science journal into publishing a…
Fragile China: who’s really in charge?
Xi Jinping effectively vanished in July and the first half of August. Some China watchers speculated that his unexplained absence…
Save our sausages!
Who first thought of grinding up all those little unused odds and sods from an animal carcass and stuffing them…
Will assisted dying become a cover for abuse?
Every year, thousands of stories of abuse pour into Compassion in Care, a charity that supports whistleblowers in the care…
The myth of the outsider
The job of radio critic for the Tablet offers several perquisites. One of them is access to the BBC previews…
Winston, Windsor and ‘private time’: inside Trump’s state visit
The first time Donald Trump was on an official visit to the UK, in July 2018, he was deep in…
Julie Burchill, remembered
When I was told that a newspaper had asked someone to write my obituary, my first instinct was excitement. I’m…
The comeback of George III
We no longer correct ourselves as we sing the first line of the national anthem. ‘Prince of Wales’ no longer…
The wild world of the ‘Ozempic safari’
Safari log: 3.56 p.m. and the Land Rover is parked up on the savannah. Inside, we wear dark glasses and…
Autism isn’t a ‘superpower’
A very warm welcome for Margaret Thatcher inside autism’s ever-growing tent – if she can find space to wield her…
Mandelson’s Epstein problem is not going away
When King Charles hosts Donald Trump for the state banquet at Windsor Castle next week, the dignitaries should know better…
Ukraine’s Foreign Legion was doomed from the start
It seems that people would rather fight for a death cult than a democracy. At most, 15,000 foreigners have fought…
How volunteer groups are taking the place of our absent police
Chris Hargreaves used to be a wellness coach with a promising future in reality television. In 2023, he starred in…
The lunacy of emotional support animals
Naturally, the start of the new school year is often stressful for pupils. Perhaps those anxious children returning to their…
The glorious campness of Reform
It’s a very serious and rancorous time in Britain. Social strife is simmering. The asylum system is at breaking point.…
Is the British Council really a ‘nest of espionage’?
I worked for nearly a decade at the British Council in East Asia. Every day, under the guise of teaching…
Robert Jenrick: ‘Asylum seekers should be detained in camps’
On a table in Robert Jenrick’s parliamentary office lies the first part of Ronald Hutton’s biography of Oliver Cromwell, a…
The discombobulating delight of made-up languages
I wasn’t supposed to understand Potato language. It was my parents’ speech device employed when wishing to discuss certain apparently…
Denmark’s ‘spiritual rearmament’ is a lesson for the West
Something unusual is happening in Denmark – and other countries across Europe, including Britain, ought to pay attention. This spring,…
There’s nothing ironic about civilisation
A recent photograph on a BBC website startled me. It was of hundreds of books thrown out of a former…
