Boy Swallows Universe
It is difficult not to be irritated by the preoccupations of the funded state theatre companies. They seem to be…
Aussie Life
Australia’s by-sea-girtness, as much as its size, means meteorologists will always have their work cut out predicting the kind of…
Aussie Language
The Oxford English Dictionary is currently asking ‘how and why sexist terms are recorded in the dictionary and what this…
Happy Easter, bunnies
Easter is a time of rebirth and renewal in both Christian celebrations as well as the pagan festivities that the…
Stark, intense honesty
Philip Roth was prepared to stare the soul resolutely in the face – and for that he can be forgiven most things, says David Baddiel
Minority report
Almost 20 years ago, Michael Howard spoke about the ‘British dream’: that immigrant families like his could come to this…
A glimpse into cricket’s future
After the thrills and spills and last-gasp excitements of England’s triple-headed series in India, the attention of the cricket fan…
A creature of habits
Along with many other people, I gave up drinking for the month of January and then resumed with gusto on…
Alba
‘What, old monkey-face!’ said my husband with unnecessary lack of gallantry. He was referring to the 18th Duchess of Alba,…
Our Zoom seder
This week my son came home from school and asked me if it was true that the Jews killed Jesus.…
Dear Mary
Q. I have been working (from home) for a TV comedy production company for a year. My job is scouting…
Physicist’s notebook
Spring is coming. There was snow in the garden till last week, here in Canada, where I have been spending…
New-found freedom
In 2018 David Hockney went to Normandy to look at the Bayeux Tapestry, which he had not seen for more…
Barometer
Mounting losses The England football team beat San Marino 5-0, taking to 56 the number of competitive games that the…
Why will nobody publish my cartoons?
I am having very little success in getting my collection of cartoons of great religious founders published. Perhaps it is…
Enterprise and teamwork, not greed, delivered the vaccines
‘The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism — because of greed, my friends.’ So Boris Johnson…
Man about the house
I have enjoyed many of Alan Warner’s previous novels, so it gives me no pleasure to report that his new…
A washing of hands
In 1866, the Russian historian Alexander Popov made an astonishing discovery. Leafing through a Renaissance Slavonic translation of the first-century…
Prop forward
In the early Noughties there was a Hollywood subgenre (by which I mean a few cult movies, each with terrible…
Woman of the cloth
Laura Freeman considers how artists have depicted one of the strangest and most touching of the Stations of the Cross
Keeping girls out of the lab
Jina and the STEM Sisters is a blatant act of propaganda. And its intentions are excellent. This is a musical…
Mad about the boy
In the summer of 2018, when film-maker Lee Isaac Chung was on the brink of giving up filmmaking and had…
