Advice to new graduates from an old Chief Justice of Australia, Murray Gleeson: ‘To think against the spirit of the…

I am pleased to report that the Christmas season was full of peace on earth and goodwill towards men. Well,…

As Australia faces a new year of fiscal restraint, sobering economic news and reduced circumstances, it’s interesting to reflect on…

The crossing of the Blue Mountains marked a great moment in our history — too bad we didn’t commemorate it last year

Stolen intelligence files reveal a bewildering history of clandestine Australian high-tech surveillance operations

Whatever it takes to play an Australian in film, non-Australians should be welcome

The Brussels establishment see their diverse new opponents as just a bunch of extremists. They won't know what's hit them

One of the 20th century's great crimes is still awaiting a fitting memorial

I don't like who I become when I'm looking for a house

We need conservatism now more than ever

There's absolutely no need to separate our rubbish by hand

I'm not, for starters

How must our recipes appear to the inheritors of thousands of years of tradition?

Lush lawns and eccentricity

It's more than just the mojitos that will make your head spin

Discover the brutally seductive landscape off Sweden's coast

A place to eat everything

It's not enough to have a rising economy, and popular messages on Europe and immigration. The conservatives need to rediscover their passion for choice

Home Six months of talks in Northern Ireland, chaired by Dr Richard Haass, a retired American diplomat, ended without resolving…

Plus: Scottish independence, not being a conservative, and the case for big basements

Centuries of conflict 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the war which was supposed to end all wars. Has the…

The ancients were an inquisitive lot, a characteristic shown to best effect in works like Aristotle’s Problems (‘Why do sex-maniacs’…

In defence of super-heads Sir: I would like to defend head teachers all over the country from the assertions made…

Nick Clegg has a very good chance of staying in power. Here's how

It's a fugue of idiocy, spite and misinformation. Take no notice

Cryptocurrencies are an enemy of state power. That's what makes them exciting – and risky

I eat meat every day. And I don't feel guilty. Perhaps I should

What's needed is not top-down reform, but continuous improvement from the bottom up

Nick Groom's The Seasons is an elegy to a time when we lived according to the farming and religious cycles — and a plea for us to attend village festivals and bonfire nights

Philip Roth is a master of voices, shows Claudia Roth Pierpont in Roth Unbound. The biography works because she is one too

Art can heal, argue Alain de Botton and John Armstrong in Art as Therapy. If they had their way the Tate Modern would have a 'Gallery of Suffering' and a 'Gallery of Compassion'

Anjelica Huston recounts her interesting childhood, often beautifully, in A Story Lately Told

Leonardo Padura's The Man Who Loved Dogs is an atmospheric noir on how the revolutionary was killed by an ice-pick, after other murder attempts

The story is negligible and the denouement ridiculous, but Susanna Johnston's Lettice & Victoria will have you chuckling

With stories by Somerset Maugham and Nadine Gordimer, Love Duet is a compelling anthology by Christopher Ondaatje of how we find love — and ourselves — in music

That’s girt by sea, as in the national anthem. As a title, it fits the overall tone of the book,…

You'll find Bacon, Lowry and a few superb artefacts, but mostly this jumble of a show is like visiting a large country house that's fallen on hard times

The most talented of the Bach family (after his father), anything could happen if Radio 3 gets behind him

Last year was a good year only for colleges of music, Opera North, The Welsh National Opera — and Wagner

Plus: When Dickens is a hippie with a goatee, and Tiny Tim's crutch turns into an all-American prop (not a machine gun)

This sanctifying film is so busy ticking all the historical boxes that it pays no attention to what made Mandela tick

'Nelson was considered a hunk in his young days,' says the actress, who's keen to reprise her role as Miss Moneypenny in the next Bond

Plus: Darcy has become a sensitive soul in Death Comes to Pemberley, but I miss the uptight Regency posho

On 28 June, Radio 3 will broadcast a concert from Saravejo to mark the first step on the road to WWI. Four years of unparalleled memorial coverage follow

Alec Cobbe: Designer, Collector, Connoisseur takes a look at the man who advised on the interiors of many a stately home

If it's anything like last year, there'll be too many to list

How I got to my first party of the new year

And that's the easy resolution

Another birthday, another prescription

What is the purpose of bidding? It’s how partners describe their hands to each other in order to reach the…

Viswanathan Anand, the 15th world champion, suffered a complete meltdown in his title defence against Magnus Carlsen towards the end…

Black to play. This position is from Kramnik-Anand, Nice 2008. Both sides have dangerous-looking attacks. Can you spot Anand’s brilliant…

In Competition 2828 you were invited to submit a retrospective verse commentary on 2013. Reasons to be cheerful are, apparently,…

The unclued lights are broadly of a kind (33 differs from the others, though 33K would have been more appropriate,…

The unclued lights are examples of super slang listed on pp 7/8 in the Word Lover’s Miscellany section of Chambers…

With some clever vote-trading, we can stop Ed Miliband

The most tech-savvy people can be luddites in the kitchen

Plus: How to breakfast alone

Escaping the scourge of oxidisation

Cobs, baps, barm cakes and the wonders of dialect geography