Not all British memsahibs were racist snobs
Despite efforts to prevent them, British women formed a part of the Indian empire almost from the start. Although the…
Searching for the sublime in deep dark holes
Edmund Burke, as a young Irish lawyer in 1756, first made the distinction between beauty and sublimity. Beauty for Burke…
Looking back on Baku
The discovery of oil in Baku brought Ummulbanu Asadullayeva’s family respect if not respectability. Peasant-born, her grandparents ranked by the…
How Camilla’s grandfather helped popularise the architecture Prince Charles detests
Was the Bauhaus the most inspired art school of all time or the malignant source of an uglifying industrial culture…
Fantasist, bigamist and cheat: the colourful career of Robert Parkin Peters
In 2010, Adam Sisman published a masterly biography of Hugh Trevor-Roper, who was not merely one of the best historians…
A very tangled web: Liar, by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, reviewed
The Hebrew word for ‘truth’ – see above left (emet) is comprised of the first, middle and last letters of…
Desperate mothers, abandoned babies: the tragic story of London’s foundlings
One of the oddest of Bloomsbury’s event venues must be the Foundling Museum. The handsome building on Coram’s Fields houses…
How poetry turned a failing comprehensive into one of Oxford’s most oversubscribed schools
Kate Clanchy is an extraordinary person. She is a veteran of 30 years’ teaching in difficult state schools, as well…
Fame made Gabriel García Márquez a pedantic bore
Gerald Martin’s titanic biography of 2010, Gabriel García Márquez: A Life, was the product of 17 years of research and…
Would Turkey exist as a nation if it hadn’t annihilated its Christians?
Turkey greets you with a chilly blue eye, a flared eyebrow, a cliff-like cheekbone. The face of the republic’s founder…
Should adoptive parents be allowed to pick and choose their child?
The sorrow of involuntary childlessness is profound. The award-winning novelist Patrick Flanery and his husband knew this pain. Their craving…
Satirising the global society: Only Americans Burn in Hell, by Jarett Kobek, reviewed
An immortal faery queen from a magical gynocratic island arrives in Los Angeles to track down her missing daughter. This…
The joy of jousting
Emperor Maximilian I liked to say he invented the joust of the exploding shields. When a knight charged and his…
Maybe the best thing this skag head’s ever done: Peter Doherty & the Puta Madres reviewed
Grade: A Old skag head’s back, then — older (40 now!), probably none the wiser, still a very good songwriter.…
Why do we still use the Qwerty keyboard layout and not Dvorak?
‘Can you fly down this evening?’ she was asked by her boss in the Delhi office of the BBC. ‘Yes,…
Did the makers of When I Grow Up have no qualms turning a small boy into a hate figure?
Channel 4’s When I Grow Up had an important lesson for middle-class white males everywhere: you’re never too young to…
An abdication of interpretative responsibility: Royal Opera’s Billy Budd reviewed
The climactic central scene of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd ends unexpectedly. The naval court has reached a verdict of death,…
Can Deborah Ross finish her Tolkien review before it fades from memory?
Tolkien is a biopic covering the early life of J.R.R. Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) and it is not especially memorable. I’m…
One of the great whodunnits: Old Vic’s All My Sons reviewed
It starts on a beautiful summer’s morning in the suburbs of America. A prosperous middle-aged dad is chatting with his…
Moore’s art has never looked better: Henry Moore at Houghton Hall reviewed
Henry Moore was, it seems, one of the most notable fresh-air fiends in art history. Not only did he prefer…
Sebastian Flyte had nothing on me: memories of a misspent youth
Charlottesville is an enchanting Virginia college town graced by the neoclassical architecture of the university’s founder, Thomas Jefferson. I flew…
Meet Santini: the world’s worst tourist guide
Santino was unusually short in the leg and, in his mid-twenties, was already rapidly losing his hair. He had recently…
The NHS’s CBT mailshot is a scandal
A leaflet came through my door from the NHS inviting me to take part (if that is the right term)…
Why we should listen to elephants
Laikipia, Kenya ‘An elephant has fallen over,’ said the man running up to me. My first thought was that…
Bridge
‘You know what people say about you?’ Zia Mahmood told me the other day. ‘You play really well but then…
