A thoroughly modern medieval romance
The novelist and essayist James Meek’s confident new medieval romance is conducted in brief passages separated out by three icons,…
There’s no place quite like Excellent Essex
Those who think Essex is boring, or a human waste bin into which only the most meretricious people find themselves…
The Lost Girls of World War II – a tribute
It is to Peter Quennell in his memoir The Wanton Chase that D.J. Taylor owes his concept of wartime London’s…
A New York state of mind – Doxology reviewed
Doxology covers five decades and a spacious 400 pages, with all the subplots and digressions you would expect of a…
A page-turning work of well-researched history: The Mountbattens reviewed
He would want to be remembered as the debonair war hero who delivered Indian independence and became the royal family’s…
Edna O’Brien’s heroic tribute to the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram: Girl reviewed
This novel is strikingly brave in two ways: first, in the fortitude of its writer, the redoubtable Edna O’Brien, who,…
One insider’s view of the thorny subject of immigration
Probably this happens to every generation: the moment when you can’t believe what’s going on; when events seem too preposterous…
William Dalrymple has nailed the East India Company for what it was: ‘a supreme act of corporate violence’
A boardful of company directors are summoned to explain themselves to a Whitehall select committee. The Bank of England has…
Tobias Jones finds in Italian football hooliganism a mirror image of Italy itself
Ultras (Italian football hooligans) initially evolved along the same lines as their more infamous English counterparts, emerging in the 1960s…
20th-century assassins – How to be a Dictator reviewed
Frank Dikötter has written a very lively and concise analysis of the techniques and personalities of eight 20th-century dictators: Mussolini,…
The many faces of William ‘Slasher’ Blake
‘Imagination is my world.’ So wrote William Blake. His was a world of ‘historical inventions’. Nelson and Lucifer, Pitt and…
Extremely predictable and extremely dull: Downton Abbey reviewed
The much-anticipated film version of Downton Abbey has arrived and I suppose you could describe it as the Avengers Assemble…
The rude, ripe tastelessness of John Eliot Gardiner’s Berlioz is the perfect antidote to Haitink’s Instagram Bruckner
Conducting is one of those professions — being monarch is perhaps another — where the less you do, the more…
With these documentaries, the BBC has lost any claim to impartiality
Because the rise of the Nazis is a topic so rarely mentioned these days, least of all in schools, the…
General de Gaulle’s advice to the young Queen Elizabeth
There were so many ear-catching moments in Peter Hennessy’s series for Radio 4, Winds of Change, adapted from his new…
Nothing sings and shimmies like Alvin Ailey
Hit them with your best shot? Or save the best till last? Almost 30 years after Alvin Ailey’s death in…
Funny, short and cheap to stage, Hansard is an excellent bet for a transfer
Hansard is the debut play by actor Simon Woods, who enjoys a deep knowledge of his subject. The characters are…
The most exciting band I have seen for years and years: the Murder Capital reviewed
It’s entirely possible for a band to be quite the most brilliant thing in existence for the briefest of times,…
Remembering Tim Hoare – a man like no other
He was a Falstaff in his drinking and in his celebration of life, but his greatness lay in his friendships.…
The woman laid out in the coffin in front of us wasn’t Mum
The receptionist with brown lipstick showed my son and me into a faultless waiting room, whose centrepiece was a big…
Pet health insurance is a scam
‘The reason vets are so expensive now,’ explained the vet in her snazzy green uniform, ‘is because we can do…
Excessive gambling is dangerous – a flutter on the horses is not
Sorry is allegedly the hardest word to say — so Carolyn Harris, chair of the all-party parliamentary group studying gambling-related…
Bridge
Not many male bridge players over a certain age (ten) would call themselves feminists. I won’t repeat what the partner…
Benko’s endgame
The Hungarian/American grandmaster Pal Benko has died at the age of 91. Among his numerous distinguished achievements was his double qualification…
No. 571
White to play. This position is from Benko-Jeney, Budapest 1950. Benko has just sacrificed rook for knight. What is his…
