It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Niki Savva book, reviewed this week by Rebecca Weisser as well…

I love Rome. I love how the old is woven into the new, so the ruins of some dead medieval…

The Australian Law Reform Commission is wrong.

Those Liberals who voted to oust Prime Minister Abbott may come to regret their treachery

The Senate voting reforms are essential to restoring democracy to our flawed system

Those bigmouths who have spilled the beans on office gossip and scuttlebutt do themselves no favours

We can’t get rid of jihadis, sex gang ringleaders and drug lords – so we try to deport old ladies like Myrtle Cothill

The borders were thrown open and now it’s too late for second thoughts

‘The bible of the British aristocracy’ lived up to its eccentric reputation

Also in Max Hastings’s US notebook: Trump and the triumph of irrationality, and a lament for the washbasin plug

Canada’s new PM is a media darling. You can expect that to change when the bill arrives

It’s in our shared interests for Britain to be a more reliable ally. Without its EU entanglements, that’s just what it’ll be

The anti-free-speech revolution is devouring its children

Paul Cook on fame and notoriety, patriotism and the EU

My visit began with a ‘rather strong’ earthquake. But there’s no question the long flight was worth it

And the EU is capitulating. That doesn't make David Cameron's referendum task any easier

Home The Bank of England arranged for banks to be able to borrow as much money as they needed around…

Susan Hill’s diary: on taking against a book, the death of dear friends, and writing by speaking out loud

Plus: the price of power at Hinkley Point; and an immigration estimate for if Turkey joins the EU

…and David Cameron is responding like a loyal imperial governor

From ‘Colonel Churchill’, The Spectator, 11 March 1916: Colonel Churchill is being found out. The charm, once universal, no longer…

Money for nothing Sir: The European Union, in its wisdom, announced last week that it would be granting a further…

If Britain votes against Brexit and the economy stays strong he may yet be the next Prime Minister

David Cameron might have done better to stay out of things too

In England, people dislike talking about lavatories in public. So soon, they will have no public lavatories

Just as with Thatcherism, it’s the very posh who won’t stand firm

Also in Any Other Business: budget boredom; Bob Dudley; Brics nonsense

In The Age of Genius, he awards the 17th and 21st centuries top marks for intellectual progress. But will terrorism relegate our present to also-played?

Like the rest of My Struggle, this fifth volume, with its loving descriptions of everyday life, will be sheer magic to aficionados

Merritt Tierce, Sunil Yapa, Ali Eskandarian, Austin Duffy and Paraic O’Donnell take us from the hippy streets of Seattle to the squalid lofts of Brooklyn

Nina Lyon traces his legend from the Roman god Sylvanus, through the Arthurian Green Knight to summer sex-fests and sweetcorn’s Green Giant

This Census-Taker, Miéville’s new apocalyptic novel, is (apparently) incomplete, definitely downbeat and signifies — who knows?

In an agonised memoir, Sue Klebold wonders what possible warning signs there were to suggest that her seemingly ordinary son would become a mass murderer

Part crime-thriller, part doomed love story, Jordan’s The Drowned Detective is an enthralling novel — which would also make a very good film

Eliot’s extensive American tour in 1932–33 came close to being sabotaged when his wife locked up his lecture notes on the eve of his departure

In this remarkable combination of memoir and art criticism, Laing finds relief from crippling loneliness among the artists of New York’s East Village

Tiffany Jenkins’s arguments against the return of artefacts to their country of origin inevitably draw strength from the continuing crisis in the Middle East

The stories in Mr Kafka and Other Tales, reissued after 50 years, are as fresh, funny and incisive as they were when first published

Bart Casey brilliantly resurrects this adventurer, diplomat, mystic and spy who impressed Queen Victoria with his ability to commune with fairies

Murder, romance and the pursuit of the untranslatable make for a curious but satisfying comedy thriller

Ysenda Maxtone Graham fears for the doting mother of Elizabeth Hay’s new family drama if ever her son decides to leave home

Having invented gunpowder in the ninth century, China might easily have advanced through Europe. But its reluctance to wage war left it sidelined for centuries, according to Tonio Andrade

One might hope that as a Hellene, Niki Savva could shed some light on the tragedy of the Abbott government…

Damian Thomson talks to the Japanese conductor – and strict Calvinist – about the religious underpinnings of his celebrated Bach recordings

Hilma af Klint may have been the first to abstraction, but was she any good at it? Plus: Barry Flanagan at Waddington Custot Galleries and Eduardo Chillida at Ordovas

But the collision of disciplines is at its wildest when you leave the opera house completely and venture into the world of music collectives like ARCO and art galleries like DRAF

Plus: Hand to God is an aggressive and puerile attack on Christian evangelism – and an ideal present for youngsters

It’s hard to know what this Charlie Kaufman stop-motion film is really about but it’ll get right under your skin

For last year’s International Women’s Day, Radio 3 played 24 hours of music by female composers - and it was a revelation

Plus: E4’s The Aliens provides the opposite: a messy-to-the-point-of-bonkers sci-fi with undeniable oomph

Asked recently whether I thought Opera on the Harbour was really opera, I replied emphatically that it is. No one…

Witnessing the suffering of migrants and Greeks alike, I have murder in my heart

Mr Simpston and Mr Gorse reminded me of my time on the railways in the 1970s

Whichever bit of a horse you worry about going wrong, another bit goes wronger. As Darcy just reminded me

It could also be Isaac Newton, a flock of vengeful chickens – or, and this is my bet, a delusion stoked by his royal connection

Unless you’re an expert, it often pays to keep quiet at the bridge table — something I really ought to…

The tournament at Bunratty is Ireland’s premier chess competition and has been for several years. This year’s event, to which…

Black to play. This position is from Skulte-Pein, Bunratty 2016. Black’s queen is attacked. His next move didn’t force immediate…

In Competition No. 2938, to mark the tercentenary of Thomas Gray’s birth, you were invited to submit an ‘Elegy on…

In eight clues, cryptic indications omit reference to parts of answers; these parts must be highlighted, to reveal the title…

The starred words in the clues are EYE, RAIL, SAGE, SNAP, TRAP, HIDE, NUTS, GUN, EE. They combine with nine…

I tweeted a picture for World Book Day, and the Twitter brigade went mad

Technologists are obsessed with saving time, but never ask what people will do instead

Plus: whether a celebrity friend should dye his hair, and Six Nations etiquette

Let’s drink to the memory of a judge who elevated common sense to a Platonic idea

The more this ancient symbol is removed from harmless uses, the more it will be associated with Nazism alone