Rockall
In 1978, an invitation was sent to some 200 members of Oxford’s Dangerous Sports Club, which simply read: ‘Tea, Rockall,…
The cheapest, deadliest weapon
Nothing prepared Antony Beevor for this devastating exposé
of the systematic use of rape in war and ethnic cleansing
Going round in circles
Some years ago I participated in a late-night Radio 3 show on exploration and travel. When I left the studio…
Can we have a pet instead?
When you’re not a mother it’s hard to imagine what motherhood is like. Anyone you know who becomes one assures…
Completely unhinged
Faced with Marina Lewycka’s new novel, it’s tempting to say that The Good, the Bad and the Little Bit Stupid…
Period piece
There’s something — isn’t there? — of the literary also-ran about Graham Swift. He was on Granta’s first, influential Best…
An Ethiopian Exodus
Menachem Begin was Israel’s most reviled and misunderstood prime minister. Reviled by Britain for his paramilitary activities against the British…
The prize of the skies
The art of falconry is more than 3,000 years old and possibly as popular now as at any time. Its…
The great taboo-breaker
In 1983 I was sent to New York to interview Johnny Rotten and I took the opportunity to call on…
Not a party person
This book is a rather startling depiction of Hugh Trevor-Roper’s involvement with the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU), his sponsored…
‘Opera is something you come to later’
After a record 18 years – and counting – as music director, Antonio Pappano talks to Norman Lebrecht about life after Covent Garden and how opera is beyond younger audiences
Grimes: Miss Anthropocene
Grade: B The old axiom no longer applies. In modern popular music, it is possible not only to gild a…
Eurotrash Verdi
Verdi’s Luisa Miller is set in the Tyrol in the early 17th century, and for some opera directors that’s a…
Seeking closure
As in many thrillers, the characters on display in Flesh and Blood (ITV, Monday to Thursday) often seemed locked in…
Changing the bard
A Moorish princess shipwrecked on the English coast disguises herself as a boy to protect her virtue. Arriving in London,…
This will hurt
Pina Bausch’s best work always hovered between the familiar and the unknown. The late choreographer revelled in borders and thresholds,…
It’s grim up north
The strange and faintly sinister works of the Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert have been compared — not unreasonably — to…
Double agents and dog-ears
When will the definitive history of the modern Middle East be written? For 20 years and more, a continent has…
What a scorcher
Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is set on a remote, windswept Brittany island in the late 18th…
High Life
Gstaad It feels like a sepia-tinged melodrama, one directed by the great schlock master Sam Wood. Driving along the winding…
Low life
Joyce Marriott of Pyrton, Oxford, has written a letter to the Times on the subject of how a person’s imagination…
Real life
Nice of the NHS to send an advisory text about coronavirus, because I was wondering. Is it possible to have…
Bridge
Bridge experts are a lovely lot. They give their time freely and generously to encourage and teach students and bring…
Increment and excrement
The science-fiction writer Douglas Adams ridiculed our primitive species for considering digital watches to be ‘a pretty neat idea’. Digital…
no. 593
White to play, a variation from McShane–-Kamsky. In the game above, I was hoping to see 31…Qa5, as I had…
