2536: At rest
Unclued lights are three sets of three words of a kind, along with a name which connects them all (two…
Gorbachev’s failed experiment
Thirty years ago the Soviet Union was guttering to its close. Those of us who were there remember the exhilarating…
Solution to 2533: Monday’s child
‘From harmony, from heavenly harmony, this universal frame began’ opens JOHN DRYDEN’s Song for ST CECILIA’S DAY (22 November, a…
Losing direction
James Ivory and Ismail Merchant formed the most successful cinematic partnership since Michael Powell and Eric Pressburger. Between the founding…
Tolkien rubbish
A couple of years ago, in that near-forgotten era when we could travel almost freely, I canvassed social media as…
From Sooki to Snoopy
It has to be one of the most extraordinary stories of lockdown — how Tom Hanks’s assistant Sooki Raphael, undergoing…
The great pretender
Eleven years ago, Kirat Assi received a message on Facebook from a man named Bobby. There was a family connection…
Selling the dream
Love her or loathe her, Enid Blyton and the safe, sunny world she cleverly marketed will remain a publishing phenomenon, says Sam Leith
Sydney Drive host Richard Glover enrages listeners
ABC radio host Richard Glover has enraged listeners by committing the unforgivable sin – taking Christianity seriously. The host of…
Should we be scared of the Omicron variant?
Why is the government so scared of the Omicron variant? So far, most of the evidence we have for transmissibility…
Why Britain should not extradite Julian Assange
Julian Assange is facing extradition after the high court ruled there is no legal impediment to him facing espionage charges in…
Silence of the Jussie Smollett defenders
Some people say that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Nonsense. There is also the certainty that…
Ian Maxwell: Ghislaine thinks Epstein was murdered
Away from the shenanigans of Westminster, the details of Ghislaine Maxwell’s ongoing trial have been filling our national newspapers this…
Emily Ratajkowski is having her cake and eating it
After listening to an hour-and-a-half of Emily Ratajkowski talking about My Body I had to look up naked pictures of…
Whitehall hit by party cancellations
After a fraught few months, you’d have hoped the hard-pressed masters and mandarins of Whitehall could let their hair down with…
The economy was stagnant even before Plan B
The economy is tantalisingly close to returning to pre-pandemic levels, now just 0.5 per cent off recovery. But this last…
The three problems facing Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson may be celebrating the birth of a baby daughter but that doesn’t mean the pressure on him is…
Jussie Smollett and the rise of American hate hoaxing
So Jussie Smollett, the world’s most notorious hate hoaxer, has at last been found guilty of lying to the police. …
A tale of two rallies: freedom vs teachers
I’m not a person who has ever attended rallies or protests. Over the years, the most interest I could muster…
Will the US welcome a new president in 2022?
Over a year ago, I wrote that no Democrat voted ‘for Biden’ – they voted ‘for anyone but Trump’. Only…
China is right to laugh at the west
Signs of the enervating weakness of the west’s governing elites aren’t that hard to find but the case of the…
The rise of the second-string left
If a recent Scientific American opinion piece purporting to explain how growing opposition to critical race theory damages public education…
Major parties 2: Democracy 0
The Liberal Party has won a ruling from the Australian Electoral Commission to force the increasingly popular minor party, the…
Saint Jacinda’s war on fags
It is a curious irony that the West’s leading progressive icon is probably the most authoritarian leader in the free world…
