The age of incivility: how social media amplifies our differences
How long ago it now seems that the big political worry was apathy. Today, wherever you look — Brexit negotiations,…
Notes on… Nucleus, the shiny new slightly secret nuclear archive
Doubtless Spectator readers based in Caithness will scoff when I say that the old fishing port of Wick (top right…
Was the Indian Rope Trick a myth?
The Paul Daniels Magic Show, on a Saturday afternoon in the early 1980s, was a straightforward enough proposition. A wand,…
Have we reached the limits of computing power — and might that be a good thing?
Arguably, the statue in Trafalgar Square should not be of Nelson but of Henry Maudslay. He had started out as…
Even in supposedly liberal circles, homophobia and racism are still quite acceptable in France
After an absence of 30 years, Didier Eribon, professor of sociology at the University of Amiens, returned to the seedy…
Was there ever anything romantic about the Romany life?
Damian Le Bas is of Gypsy stock (he insists on the upper case throughout his book). His beloved great-grandmother told…
Stormy weather: Florida, by Lauren Groff, reviewed
Over the past decade Lauren Groff has written three novels; she now returns to the short story form in this,…
The Tibetan Passion Book puts the Kama Sutra in the shade
The Tibetan artist and poet Gendun Chopel was born in 1903. He was identified as an incarnate lama, and ordained…
Does one have to dissect birds to write the biography of an ornithologist?
At first glance, the 17th-century natural historian Francis Willughby is an ideal subject for a biography. He lived in interesting…
The B-side of The English Patient? Warlight, by Michael Ondaatje, reviewed
In 1945, on a Putney side street, in a city full of darkness and half in rubble from the Blitz,…
Donald Trump: a Shakespearean tyrant to a T
‘What country, friends, is this?’ asks Viola at the start of Twelfth Night. She is shipwrecked and heartbroken; she does…
Musically, politically and culturally, Kanye West is uncontrollable and unignorable
Kanye West is more than halfway in to the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame — if his politics don’t block the…
Gripping piece of comic-horror nonsense: Killer Joe at Trafalgar Studios reviewed
Tracy Letts begins his trailer-trash comedy Killer Joe with the corniest of platitudes. A runaway druggie named Chris Smith needs…
Garsington makes as good a case as you can for Strauss’s frothy Capriccio
‘Is there an end [to this opera] that is not trivial?’ asks the Countess in her final bars of Richard…
Edward Bawden is deservedly one of Britain’s most popular 20th century artists
‘When I’m on good form,’ Edward Bawden told me, ‘I get to some point in the design and I laugh…
Cynical, one-dimensional and oddly colourless: Jurassic World – Fallen Kingdom reviewed
Back in the mists of prehistory, when I was eight, dinosaur films followed a set pattern. The dinosaurs themselves would…
Why is this Israeli drama such a hit with Palestinians? Because it tells the truth
‘The rule in our household is: if a TV series hasn’t got subtitles, it’s not worth watching,’ a friend told…
Why is Today losing its audience? Because it doesn’t care about its listeners
Headlines announcing that Radio 4’s flagship Today programme is losing its audience while Radio 3’s Breakfast has put on numbers…
Cold and confusing: Garsington’s Die Zauberflöte reviewed
The picnic hamper’s open, the bubbly is chilled, and country house opera is starting to eat itself. When you arrive…
A smidge of self-indulgence amid the power and grace: Akram Khan’s Xenos reviewed
‘Comedy Sunil Lanba, Salman Quaraishi, Omar Syed…’ Names play from a crackling gramophone. We hear what they were before the…
50 years after Bobby Kennedy’s murder, the ‘deep state’ still reigns supreme
New York This week 50 years ago saw the assassination of Robert Kennedy, a man I met a couple…
Why did a Ukrainian oligarch invite me to his party in Paris, and pay for me to get there?
On Monday night I went to a party at the Crazy Horse nightclub in Paris thrown by the oligarch Vitaly…
Turmeric is the hero herb – an all-natural, vegan alternative to common sense
Dear customer, we are invading your privacy and sending you this unsolicited email in order to tell you that you…
The thoroughbred exists because of a piece of wood: the winning post of the Epsom Derby
In the previous 17 runnings of the Derby this century no fewer than nine had been won by horses trained…
Bridge
Talk about Custer’s Last Stand. My poor old team has been knocked out of all this year’s main tournaments —…
