Should all western businesses follow Heineken out of Russia?
The news that Heineken, the Dutch brewer, has sold its business in Russia to a local buyer for a token…
Strange folk
In a few days, Lankum will most likely win the 2023 Mercury Music Prize for their fourth album False Lankum…
Wild life
Kenya Hassan was our skipper. He’d take us in his dhow out on the Indian Ocean for trips along the…
Real life
‘I can’t go through this again!’ I groaned, as I lay in bed encased in icepacks, one on my eyes…
Vampire diaries
The Immortals, which begins on Radio 4 this week, is not for the faint-hearted. While it professes to be about…
High life
Gstaad A reader’s inquiry as to why I think Paris belongs to yesterday (12 August) has me remembering times past.…
Crimes of Paris
Georges Simenon’s lugubrious detective Maigret has appeared in umpteen screen adaptations and dozens of actors have played him. Now it’s…
Master of all trades
The busiest show in Edinburgh must be Grayson Perry: Smash Hits which, a month into its run, still has people…
Germ of an idea
Bleach and germs are the central themes of Dr Semmelweis, written by Mark Rylance and Stephen Brown. The opening scene,…
The house that Rach built
Fast cars, minimalist design and en suite bathrooms: Richard Bratby visits the composer’s starkly modern Swiss home
Triumph and tragedy
England’s 1966 World Cup triumph owed much to the team’s dedicated manager, loved by his players but monstrously treated by those in charge of the FA
The changing face of Ireland
A dead poet’s dangerous aura continues to haunt his daughter and 23-year old granddaughter in this story of an unhappy family set in rapidly changing Ireland
A thing of shreds and patches
Three books examining the health service in its 75th year find it at its nadir today – with 500 people dying weekly due to delays in urgent and emergency care
Public lies and secret truths
Smith’s sweeping historical novel spans slavery in Jamaica in the 1770s and the marathon trials of the Tichborne Claimant in London a century later
Queer spaces
Diarmuid Hester goes in search of the private places of eight remarkable figures from the 20th century, to find only Derek Jarman’s cottage preserved intact as a shrine
‘Will you do a book for me?’
Born in a poor quarter of Vienna, the refugee took London by storm, married four times, survived financial ruin and died eulogised the world over
Eastern promises
Many suspect mystics have exploited naive westerners in search of spiritual enlightenment over the past century, Philip Hensher discovers
What if Biden backs out?
President Biden has declared he’s running for a second term, but it’s far from certain he actually will. His infirmity…
On the streets of Ukraine
Within 30 seconds of arriving and getting into a taxi, an air raid siren went off across the city. The…
The right to bite (ouch!)
Political correctness rules our lives these days and while I’m all for equal opportunity, what about the right to bite…
Ukrainian pupils face an impossible dilemma
Today, almost five million Ukrainian pupils have gone to school – in person or remotely. Most didn’t have festive assemblies…
Inside the No. 10 shake-up
Thursday’s cabinet reshuffle may have been minor but the No. 10 shake-up is proving more substantive. Amber de Botton has…
The Tories’ dreadful handling of the school concrete crisis
Pupils are due to head back to school over the coming days, but now it seems that some of them…
