My only home-schooling success
‘What is the point of learning maths? When do you ever actually need it? How does it ever affect your…
Letters
Is ‘the Science’ scientific? Sir: I hope that those in the highest places will have read and will act upon…
Our flawed species still stands a chance
There was always one key flaw in our species. Which is that someone always shags a monkey. I have expressed…
Bloodbath in the Pacific
The US operation of 1945 to take the island of Okinawa was the largest battle of the Pacific during the…
Leave my cigarettes out of this
The owners of my local grocery shop, a mile or so from my house, very kindly sell me cigarettes in…
Just the beginning
In Japan, people thought the world would end in 1052. In the decades leading up to judgment day, Kyoto was…
There is no end in sight yet
We have never had a moment like this before in our history: a time when the Prime Minister is, in…
The Boris Factor
Ending the lockdown will require a leap of faith – one that can really only be made by the PM
Walking around the garden
What’s the best way to keep in shape during the lockdown? That’s the First World problem I’ve been using to…
Real life
‘Do you want some of the private stuff from out the back?’ said the butcher to the builder boyfriend, leaning…
Doctor’s notebook
New York I hear it said now and again that Covid-19 is just a nasty winter bug, nothing more than…
High life
Aristophanes was a comic genius long before the Marx Brothers, but he also gave good advice to the Athenians: stop…
The bottom line
Compared with every other household chore, progress in bum-wiping has been glacially slow. It’s only in living memory that schools…
The Boyz are back in town
Another day in isolation, another bid to find joy in my lone state-sanctioned walk. (Pro tip: stay out longer than…
‘I’ll show you what a woman can do’
The life of Artemisia Gentileschi is made for Netflix, says Laura Freeman, but it’s her art that really excites
Great Scot
William Cook talks to Billy Connolly – welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – about growing up in Glasgow, ditching the mike stand and living with Parkinson’s
Ramp up
My husband is fond of an old pub in Northumberland called the Red Lion, once a drovers’ inn, it says.…
2452: Comme on dit
The unclued lights (five of two words and one of three) should be paired to reveal four expressions verifiable in…
Eating Easter
Stop the clocks: Fortnum & Mason is still delivering hampers. I am not surprised, because this shop — or rather…
East meets west
When musicians from outside the Anglo-American pop mainstream achieve success in the West, there are conflicting reactions. Seun Kuti, the…
Dear Mary
Q. Caught in Switzerland as the ski resort shut down around my ears, and feeling like a walking health hazard,…
The enemy within
It’s easy to dismiss the fascistic ideologues who populate Graham Macklin’s book as reactionary cranks of no significance. It’s also…
Manchester, united
Andy Burnham on challenging the government, social distancing and how his city copes in a crisis
