What about Caitlin Moran?
I first met Caitlin Moran at Julie Burchill’s flat in Bloomsbury. This was in the early 1990s and she was…
The high price of public service
The news has been coming so thick and fast of late that every week there are dozens of stories we…
‘We need to be terrified for our lives’
James W. Phillips and Eliezer Yudkowsky on the threat from AI
Too posh for the cosh
In 2014, Ben Macintyre presented a BBC2 documentary based on his book A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the…
Heritable guilt is in vogue
I made a poor excuse for a Presbyterian even as a kid. I resented religious indoctrination every precious school-free Sunday.…
Matters of life and death
Seven years ago, I asked Bruce Springsteen what he meant when he talked of the covenant between himself and his…
A gasp and a guffaw
Blockbuster action movies are designed to stun the audience into submissive acceptance. Complexity, humanity, emotion and beauty are reduced to…
Omission accomplished
Beneatha’s Place, set in the 1950s, follows a black couple who encounter racial prejudice when they move to a predominately…
The great pretenders
In 1998 curators at the Courtauld Institute received an anonymous phone call informing them that 11 drawings in their collection…
Testament of cliché
‘Ring out your bells for me, ivory keys! Weave out your spell for me, orchestra please!’ It’s lush stuff, the…
The turf
I should have listened to George Duffield. Sandown Park’s Eclipse Stakes, the first time the Classic generation of three-year-olds take…
Real life
‘You certainly gave us a run for our money,’ said the village elder, serving us with what appeared to be…
High life
A poor little Greek boy writing about cricket etiquette is like Harry Sussex lecturing on discretion, but never mind. As…
A burning issue
Food and fashion are the chief culprits, with too much organic waste going to landfill, and 10-15 per cent of new clothing routinely incinerated as ‘deadstock’
The woman who would be king
Describing the golden age of ancient Egypt, John Romer pays tribute to the chief wife of Thutmose II who proclaimed herself king and ruled successfully for almost 20 years
Daydream believers
Niall Kishtainy examines the eccentric ideas of Gerrard Winstanley, Thomas Spence, John Adolphus Etzler, Thomas More and other utopians who lived in and around the capital
A born storyteller
Instead of swashbuckling, we get the Parisian art world, trout-fishing, unhappy couples and surrogate parenting – though the 20 stories for children are full of adventure
