The thrill of Stanley Spencer
‘Places in Cookham seem to me possessed by a sacred presence of which the inhabitants are unaware,’ wrote Stanley Spencer.…
What links Jeffrey Dahmer to the Spice Girls?
The path that links the Spice Girls to Jeffrey Dahmer – necrophile mass murderer of at least 17 men –…
Paddington – The Musical is sensational
Who doesn’t love Paddington? The winsome marmalade junkie has arrived at the Savoy Theatre in a musical version of the…
Why is divorce so seldom addressed in art?
Two years ago I was flown to Reykjavik to interview the Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson. It was a weird…
The joy of composers’ graves
I called on Hugo Wolf the other week, and he didn’t look too great. He wouldn’t, of course; he died…
The cardinals spill the beans on the conclave
Secrets of the Conclave seemed rather optimistically titled, given that everybody at this year’s papal election had made a solemn…
Intoxicating Elgar from the London Phil
By all accounts, the world première of Elgar’s Sea Pictures at the October 1899 Norwich Festival made quite a splash.…
Rescuing the Nativity from cliché
The Nativity. In ‘Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance’, Elizabeth Bishop ends her travelogue-poem – St Peter’s, Mexico, Dingle,…
I’m a Christmas pudding convert
I used to be a Christmas pudding denier. I couldn’t see the attraction of a dense pudding made mostly of…
The 12 things that mattered in politics in 2025
We are in the pre-Christmas dog days and politics has, finally, slowed down a bit. Reflecting on 2025, here are…
Were the Romans good for Britain?
Since the Romans themselves wrote about the subject, we have a clear idea of the good things they did for…
Trump’s golden ticket
Give me your super rich, your global citizens yearning to be free! The Trump administration has finally unveiled its “Trump…
Europe’s EV market is rolling backwards
Imagine you are a keen Brexiteer and opponent of net zero plans, especially of the idea of being forced to…
How Rachel Reeves shrank the economy
The British economy is shrinking. Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that GDP fell by…
The war in Ukraine is reaching its endgame
Painfully and chaotically, the outline of the peace deal that will eventually end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is emerging as…
Stopping the boats will be harder than Jordan Bardella thinks
France’s Jordan Bardella has promised to stop the boats. Now where have we heard that before? The president of Marine…
When will Europe’s leaders wake up to the Russian threat?
Europe’s leaders flocked to London this week, determined to show the world a united front. Like school boys at a…
How we cured DEI at the National Institutes of Health
Since the National Institutes of Health was founded as a one room laboratory in 1887 its mission was simple; perform…
The charming side of elections in the Falklands
It’s election time in the Falklands, where every four years we choose eight members of the Islands’ legislative assembly. They…
Is the superflu really ‘unprecedented’?
The NHS is facing a ‘worst-case scenario’ for flu this winter. That was the verdict of Professor Meghana Pandit, national…
Sandie Peggie and a chilling step backwards for women’s rights
A woman confronts a biological man in a female changing room. She is later found to have harassed him because…
