Lying with science: a guide to myth debunking
‘The whole aim of practical politics,’ wrote H.L. Mencken, ‘is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be…
My evening with Jacob Rees-Mogg — live at the London Palladium
A woman dressed as a nun is standing outside the London Palladium with a placard, warning about ‘an evening with…
The art, beauty and joy of videogames
By day, I’m a mild-mannered book-world hanger-on; by night, I roar through the streets of Gotham in my heavily armed…
No deal? No problem
Britain, we’re led to be believe, is heading for the worst catastrophe in its history. Officialdom is warning that a…
My husband was a citizen of nowhere. Where can he rest in peace?
It is cold, dank and muddy and I’m contemplating a barely defined path from the paved road into an ever-darkening…
Bernie Sanders is back – and terrifying the Democratic establishment
Washington, DC Bernie Sanders likes private jets. That, at least, is the malicious word being put about by Hillary Clinton’s…
‘Too English, bizarre, and what are the rules again?’: Cricket in Buenos Aires
For most Latin Americans, who are themselves no strangers to sporting eccentricity, cricket remains a baffling proposition. The game is…
A clear vision of Walter Gropius the man is hard to come by
Walter Gropius (1883–1969) had the career that the 20th century inflicted on its architects. A master of the previous generation…
Angels through the ages
A good question for your upcoming Lent quiz: where are angels mentioned in the Nicene Creed? I asked this at…
Love, death and loss in a small village – Lanny reviewed
Max Porter’s first book, Grief is the Thing with Feathers (2015), got a lot of credit for finding original ways…
The world according to Charlotte Bingham, Spies and Stars reviewed
Charlotte Bingham has had an extraordinary writing career. She wrote her first book, Coronet Among the Weeds (newly republished by…
I Will Never See the World Again, Ahmet Altan’s fourth book written from prison
There’s no getting away from that title. I will never see the world again. It catches your eye on the…
Mister Miracle, the cheesiest of all superheroes, reviewed
Mister Miracle is, on the face of it, one of the cheesiest of all costumed super-heroes. Created by Jack Kirby…
Playing mind games: Let Me Not Be Mad reviewed
The journalist Auberon Waugh, in whose time-capsule of a flat I briefly lived in 2000, once summed up what he…
’I know it when I see it’ – anti-Semitism for dummies
Some people might argue that Deborah Lipstadt has given us the book we desperately need from the author best equipped…
David Cairns explains how we learned to love Berlioz
According to his friend and fellow-composer Ernest Reyer, the last words Berlioz spoke on his deathbed were: ‘They are finally…
The only way to avoid Ariana Grande’s drivel is to move to Iran
Grade: D Among the many reasons for moving to Iran is this vapid, talentless, derivative, hyperbolically oversexed drivel aimed at…
I always come away more confused after listening to Moral Maze
Is it me or are we now faced (or perhaps I should say fazed?) much more often by stories in…
Phyllida Barlow’s sculptural wonderland reigns supreme at the Royal Academy
‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.’ If there’s an exception to prove Shaw’s rule, it’s Phyllida Barlow. The…
A torpid seminar on why Trump is the Antichrist: Shipwreck reviewed
When reviewers call a work ‘important’ they mean ‘boring’ and ‘earnest’. And in those terms Shipwreck is one of the…
I’ve never seen Coogan better or Partridge funnier: This Time with Alan Partridge reviewed
Steve Coogan is back as Alan Partridge but frankly who cares? Like Ali G, I’ve long thought, he’s one of…
Odious, endless dross: Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch reviewed
Please believe that I try to give every production my full attention, to do due diligence, to blink and miss…
Opera North’s Rite of Spring shows the advantages of confining the music to the pit
It was Stravinsky himself who suggested that, in order to preserve its difficulty, the opening bassoon solo of The Rite…
Peculiarly mesmerising: Hannah reviewed
Hannah stars Charlotte Rampling in a film where not much happens and not much happens and not much happens and…
I’ve contributed greatly to animal welfare, via the casino
A rare British species, a womanising ex-foreign secretary, kissed and told about his brief affair with a yellow-eyed temptress last…
