The end is nigh: the rise of middle-class apocalypticism
There’s a lot of anger about — and it’s not pleasant. But at least it means people are engaged as…
Is your doctor faking it?
Last October, Phil Coleman, a journalist on the Carlisle-based News & Star, went to cover the trial of Zholia Alemi,…
Why croquet beats cricket
People say cricket is the quintessential English game. Those people are wrong. Cricket may have a longer pedigree, but it’s…
Solving the mystery of my mother’s kidnap
At first glance, Laura Cumming’s memoir On Chapel Sands begins with what appears to be a happy ending. On an…
Creatures of the night: why do we find them irresistible?
When it was recently announced that Robert Pattinson, who played the vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight films, had secured…
Desperate souls: Travellers, by Helon Habila, reviewed
Death by water haunts the stories of Africans in Europe that flow through this fourth novel by Helon Habila. From…
A drag army in waiting: This Brutal House, by Niven Govinden, reviewed
Niven Govinden’s This Brutal House is set in the demi-monde of the New York vogue ball. This is an organised,…
For a passionate ecologist, Barry Lopez burns a lot of oil
It is more than a generation since the appearance of Barry Lopez’s classic Arctic Dreams. That book’s effortless integration of…
From bibliomania to kleptomania: the serious crimes of book lovers
In the spring of 1998, Rolling Stones fans in Germany were disappointed to hear that the band had been forced…
The Kan-do spirit: Under Red Skies, by Karoline Kan, reviewed
The defining feature of Chinese millennials is not Instagram, avocado on toast or propertylessness. Born in the early years of…
Fluttering to extinction: the tragedy of Britain’s butterflies
In 1979, despite the best efforts of scientists for more than a century, a butterfly called the British Large Blue…
Getting to grips with rocket science
Now that we are stupidly rendering Earth almost entirely uninhabitable by many species including our own (through overcrowding, failing political…
The free-spirited sisters who galvanised the Bloomsbury Group
It was high time we had a proper look at the four beautiful, original Olivier sisters. Hitherto, with one exception,…
History is made from ideas — but are ideas becoming history?
Wallace Stevens called it ‘the necessary angel’. Ted Hughes thought it ‘the most essential bit of machinery we have if…
Cindy Sherman – selfie queen
The selfie is, of course, a major, and to me mysterious, phenomenon of our age. The sheer indefatigability of selfie-takers,…
Funny moments swamped by an intolerable romance: Yesterday reviewed
Yesterday is the latest comedy (with sad bits) from Richard Curtis, directed by Danny Boyle, about an unsuccessful singer-songwriter, Jack,…
Why I’m done with Fleetwood Mac
There is something inexplicably exciting about pop’s notion of a ‘scene’: young musicians of similar outlooks drawn together by a…
Saved by the chorus
We’ve cried wolf with Handel. Ever since the modern trend began for staging the composer’s oratorios we’ve hailed each one…
A captivating freak-show: Bitter Wheat reviewed
Bitter Wheat, David Mamet’s latest play, features a loathsome Hollywood hotshot, Barney Fein, who offers to turn an actress into…
Shameless and corny: ITV’s Beecham House reviewed
ITV’s new drama Beecham House is set in late 18th-century India where the British and French were still battling it…
David Coverdale, lead singer of Whitesnake, talks hair, love handles and ‘sexism’
‘Invest in your hair,’ advises David Coverdale, a man with a shag of the stuff glossier than a supermodel’s and…
What drives Emily Maitlis?
It can’t be easy to find yourself on the other end of the microphone when you’re a journalist of the…
Nice men make terrible leaders
The Duke of Marlborough gave a toast last week that brought the house down during a Turning Point dinner for…
My oncologist is a shining goddess
The weather forecast was rain, torrential, all day, so I took my anorak. In the hospital car park it was…
You can tell a Remainer by their garden fence
Remainers don’t like borders, I get that. But I had always assumed this was a preference confined to geopolitics. I…
