How on earth did North Vietnam prevail against the world’s greatest power?
The 50th anniversary of the Vietnam war has produced an outpouring of books, along with Ken Burns’s 18-hour television spectacular,…
Josef Albers: the Bauhaus artist whose pupil designed Auschwitz
The German-born artist, Josef Albers, was a contrary so-and-so. Late in life, he was asked why — in the early…
Were the Highland Clearances really a byword for infamy?
There is a degree of irony in the opening chapter of T.M. Devine’s history, lambasting popular previous depictions of the…
Strawberry Hill revived
We can’t know what Horace Walpole would make of the continuing popularity of serendipity, a word he coined in 1754…
Wonderful, overwhelming, once-in-a-lifetime display of Bruegels – get on a plane now
‘About suffering’, W.H. Auden memorably argued in his poem ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’, the old masters ‘were never wrong’. Great…
Bleak, unflinching, oppressive, violent – and magical: Dogman reviewed
Matteo Garrone’s Dogman, which is Italy’s entry for the foreign language Oscar next year, is bleak, unflinching, oppressive, masculine (very),…
Women should boycott David Hare’s slanderous new play: I’m Not Running reviewed
Sir David Hare’s weird new play sets out to chronicle the history of the Labour movement from 1996 to the…
When haddocks flirt, they sound like a motorbike revving up
Flies buzzing, strange rustling, crunching sounds, and then the most chilling screech you’ll have heard all week. Vultures were feeding…
Women’s toplessness caused less offence to Victorians than their trousers
‘They did not look like women, or at least a stranger new to the district might easily have been misled…
An enjoyably gossipy whisk through half a century of fierce rivalries and bruised egos
At the beginning of Barneys, Books and Bust Ups: 50 Years of the Booker Prize (BBC4), Kirsty Wark’s voiceover promised…
Lautrec often made the stars in his posters look appalling – but they kept coming back
You don’t need to be much of a psychologist to understand the trajectory of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Born to aristocratic…
Thrilling, heartbreaking music drama – you need to see it: ENO’s Porgy and Bess reviewed
Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess springs to life fully formed, and pulls you in before a word has been sung. A…
The truth about Wilhelm Furtwängler
The morning after the first night of Ronald Harwood’s Taking Sides in May 1995, I received a call from Otto…
Laudably perverse – maybe album of the year: Cypress Hill’s Elephants on Acid reviewed
Grade: A+ Easily album title of the year, maybe album of the year. A true bravura offering from these supposedly…
‘I should just shut up’: Dominic West on #MeToo and the perils of talking politics
Lounging confidently on the sofa of a Soho hotel suite, Dominic West has been beaming at me, but now his…
Why truth gets you nowhere
New York There is fear and loathing in this city, with men looking over their shoulders for the thought…
Guns and gin: just another Spectator Wine Club lunch
East of London the Thames broadens dramatically to a surreal waste of mud and sewage-coloured water lined with shipping-container dumps.…
Silicon Valley’s evil plan
After months of trying not to try the exciting new version of Gmail, the exciting new version of Gmail tried…
Ship ahoy
The Evans Gambit was invented by a British naval officer of the early part of the 19th century, Captain W.D. Evans,…
no. 528
White to play. This position is from Khmelniker-Harari, Isle of Man 2017. How did White make the most of his…
Mary, Mary…
In Competition No. 3070 you were invited to provide a poem with the title ‘When I Grow Up I Want…
2381: Step changes
1 Across and 45 Across form a phrase, and the other unclued entries form a word ladder linking them, by…
to 2378: Boundary
LIMES (22), a term for a boundary of the ROMAN EMPIRE (7 30), is a DEFINITION (19) of five items…
Why are faceless accusations allowed to end men’s careers?
On 11 October 2017 an anonymous Google spreadsheet began doing the rounds of American newspapers and magazines — a document…
