How to save the Tory party
How do you feel about the standard of political debate in this country? I ask this question at the very…
Internet scammers can fool anyone – including me
Please don’t suppose I’m unaware I’ve been an idiot. I recount what happened to me last week without expecting your…
No exaggeration: Hyperbole makes words worthless
Saturday night, a guest commentator on Sky News sputtered that Donald Trump has ‘normalised white supremacy’. Once the American President…
In favour of nationalisation? Take a look at Network Rail
We don’t hear enough about Network Rail these days. By that I mean that the entity recently described by the…
The in-tray of horrors that Theresa May has left for her successor
‘Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money. Kind regards — and good luck!’ Liam Byrne will forever be…
Could a global recession be around the corner?
How can a new incumbent of No. 10 survive without a majority and with Brexit to solve? It defies the imagination.…
Children of the revolution: Protest has become so puerile
As the left sinks into psychosis, what remains? The answer is sugar, profanity, snacks and toys. Protest now resembles Clown…
‘I have spent my life with people underestimating me’: Jeremy Hunt interviewed
When a head of state flies in for a state visit, it’s traditional for the Foreign Secretary to lead the…
Hands free: I’ve joined a new kind of abstinence movement
Eight years ago, I had an erotic epiphany. It was around midnight: I had sex on the brain and porn…
Proton therapy: Cancer revolution or costly white elephant?
It’s Asco week in Chicago: the biggest meeting of clinical oncologists in the world. McCormick Place convention centre, the largest…
Hang on to your hat – they’re making a comeback
‘Thank goodness for racing,’ says Rachel Trevor-Morgan. She is a milliner — a hat maker — so it’s no surprise…
Hostility to Islam has disguised a host of other prejudices
In 2011, when the editor of Charlie Hebdo put Muhammad on the cover, he did so as the heir to…
Does a stick insect count as a pet?
What is it that distinguishes humans from other animals? The default answer nowadays is tediously misanthropic, but a more interesting…
Joy Division was an all too short-lived joy
Once upon a time there was the arche-typal Manchester band — half of which came from Macclesfield, in leafy Cheshire,…
Midlife crisis in Montana
For Joanna Pocock, a midlife crisis is the moment in which ‘bored of the rhythm of our days, whatever those…
Alma Mahler — maddening, mesmerising or plain malicious?
It must be rare for a popular song to have such a lasting influence on a posthumous reputation. However, this…
Washed-up in LA: This Storm, by James Ellroy, reviewed
When James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential appeared in 1990, it introduced us to a world of blatant corruption, casual racism and…
Nights at the Lyceum: Shadowplay, by Joseph O’Connor, reviewed
‘I am very, very pleased,’ murmured Queen Victoria in 1895, when she dubbed Henry Irving, Britain’s first theatrical knight. He…
The wildest waters in the world
‘Below the Forties there is no law, and below the Fifties there is no God.’ Most sailors know some version…
From the Odyssey to Njals Saga: a voyage round the great myths
Six remarkable stories shape this book. Tracing the trajectories of the Odyssey to the Icelandic Njals Saga, via the Kosovo…
My agonising vigil over my twins’ fight for life
Memoirs about giving birth, a subject once shrouded in mystery, have become so popular that another may seem otiose. We…
Lusting after Bathsheba: Lux, by Elizabeth Cook, reviewed
The novel is a wonderfully commodious creature. One might wish they made trousers like it, for it can stretch or…
The miracle of Longborough – the company that broke the mould for summer opera
At Longborough Festival Opera, Richard Wagner is on the roof. Literally: his statue stands on top of the little pink…
Blast from the past
How many people do you think died at Chernobyl? 10,000? 50,000? 300,000? The correct answer, according to the never knowingly…
Poetic and profound: The Starry Messenger reviewed
Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote the movie Manchester by the Sea, shapes his work from loss, disillusionment, small-mindedness, hesitation and superficiality,…
