Reinventing the wheel
What is the most hubristic line ever written? Against some very stiff competition I would say it is that famous…
What Trump really wants
Over the years, I’ve received my share of green-ink author’s mail. You know, from folks who’ve discovered an exciting variety…
The greatest showman
Only boring people are bored by Ravel’s Boléro. True, the composer – the slyest of wits – left his share…
A painter of rural doings
‘Psst! Someone’s coming!’ the skinny man with the ragged breeches and the bandaged jaw warns his fat companion out of…
Historical lucky dip
Like so many of history’s great catastrophes, the story begins with an eccentric Victorian Englishman. Francis Galton was a maker…
Back to the future
These days, everyone who was knocking around a few decades ago predicted the internet. Marshall McLuhan famously predicted the internet…
Manhattan transfer
Crude eccentricities damage the potential brilliance of Othello at the National. Some of the visual gestures seem to have been…
Sheer delight
Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse has been described by the Guardian as ‘the most dangerous show on Netflix’. What? More dangerous…
‘What happened in Russia can happen anywhere’
Oliver Basciano talks to Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot about Putin-baiting, Ukraine and western hypocrisy
Real life
‘Then I got taken hostage in Iran,’ said the lady sitting next to me in the hairdresser’s as she was…
Low life
Sometimes, when the weather is fine, Treena calls up the stairs: ‘Why don’t you sit out on the terrace and…
High life
New York It’s party time in the Bagel, and also the last week I’ll be spending in this unrefined place.…
The unseeing eye
Stefan Hertmans is dismayed to discover that his home was once owned by a Flemish collaborator with the SS
The making of a masterpiece
But does Matthew Hollis understand the poem as well he understands the manual action of a Corona?
This misbegotten war
Putin’s new army looked lean and mean, but old, inherent weaknesses persisted: over-rigid commanders, demoralised soldiers and shaky logistics
Ghouls, goblins and curmudgeons
There are wolves, bats, 101 dogs and Maggie O’Farrell’s Nouka – an adorable black ball of fluff with big green eyes
Not such a rotten borough
Her attack on the council’s record under Conservative leadership betrays her failure to grasp the fundamentals of local government finance
