Is the judiciary really so bad at judging character?
When I had a cough last week, my son Joe, who has autism, shouted at me and covered his ears.…
Visiting the world’s masterpieces is a quixotic undertaking
From his base in London, Martin Gayford has spent much of his career as an art critic travelling. He has…
A frank description of dementia is a searing, suffocating read
In Annie Ernaux’s The Years — her extraordinary act of collective autobiography —the ‘I’ disappears. Her memoir becomes the memoir…
A dog’s life is infinitely superior to our own — so let’s embrace it
The Dominican friar Henry Suso was once carving Jesus’s name in his chest with a knife when he noticed a…
Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House is even better on second reading
Having a saint in the family is dreadful, They’re often absent, either literally or emotionally, and because they’re always thinking…
A ménage à trois that worked: Ivan Turgenev and the Viardots
If we still bemoan a world of mass tourism, the mid 19th century, Orlando Figes reminds us, is where it…
Round North Korea with Michael Palin in rose-tinted spectacles
Michael Palin in North Korea, a two-part documentary in which the Python is given a tightly choreographed tour of that…
It’s easy to forget how undemocratic Europe was 50 years ago
The subtitle of Simon Reid-Henry’s substantial work indicates its thesis: ‘The remaking of the West since the Cold War, 1971–2017.’…
As Lyra grows up, Philip Pullman’s materials grow darker
Two years after Philip Pullman published La Belle Sauvage, the prequel to His Dark Materials trilogy, we have its long-awaited…
Why have the Swedes been incapable of finding Olof Palme’s murderer?
Any Swede old enough to remember knows where they were when their prime minister Olof Palme was assassinated. On 28…
Sebastiao Salgado – master of monochrome, chronicler of the depths of human barbarity
Occasionally, we encounter an image that seems so ludicrously out of kilter with the modern world that we can only…
Joyce DiDonato seduces you within the first 10 minutes: Royal Opera’s Agrippina reviewed
‘Laws bow down before the desire to rule…’ Centuries before ‘proroguing’ had entered British breakfast-table vocabulary there was Handel’s Agrippina,…
Did Radio 2 really need to give us four days of the Beatles to celebrate Abbey Road?
This Changeling Self, Radio 4’s lead drama this week, clearly ought to have gone out in August. It’s set —…
A solid costume drama but Dame Helen has been miscast: Catherine the Great reviewed
It’s possibly not a great sign of a Britain at ease with itself that the historical character most likely to…
If you ever want to sleep again, step away from Joker
Judy is in cinemas this week and so is Joker and if you have to choose between the two, then…
Do Jews think differently?
Sixteen years into a stop-go production saga, I got a call from the director of The Song of Names with…
Flimsy and pretentious sketches: Caryl Churchill’s Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. reviewed
Caryl Churchill is back at the Royal Court with a weird collection of sketches. The first is set on a…
A cast of Antony Gormley? Or a pair of giant conkers? Gormley’s new show reviewed
While Sir Joshua Reynolds, on his plinth, was looking the other way, a little girl last Saturday morning was trying…
What you can tell about a man from his choice of underwear
New York It’s Indian summertime and the living is easy. There hasn’t been a cloud above the Bagel for two…
Will mindfulness turn me into a Remainer?
Mindfulness at our all-inclusive Turkish beach resort began at 11 o’clock. Our mindfulness teacher was a tiny, smiley, flexible-looking woman…
Should I return to the land of my Italian ancestors?
When I was growing up, my Italian grandfather was my favourite person. He taught me to play a mean game…
Britain is following in the footsteps of Africa’s former failed states
Kenya ‘In the past months the people of Uganda have been following with sorrow the alarming economic crisis befalling…
Bridge
The world bridge championships are finally over — and I don’t remember another where the England players gave us such…
Visky business
‘Visky,’ said the man driving the taxi. ‘Risky?’ ‘Visky.’ ‘Ah… whisky! Or vodka.’ I grinned as I…
no. 574
Black to play. Here is my own tragedy, from Yuffa-McShane, Khanty-Mansiysk 2019. Needing a win, I tried 81 … Kg7-f7…
