Macron’s Thatcher moment has arrived
The honeymoon is over for Emmanuel Macron. His first 11 months in office have been something of a breeze —…
How to be a tourist in Europe
Last week, I was in the Florence Baptistery by 8.30 a.m. That used to be early enough to avoid the…
Southend-on-Sea has long been a running joke – until now
Standing at the end of Britain’s longest pier, on a cold and misty morning, looking out across the Thames Estuary,…
1968 and the summer of our discontent
’68 will do as shorthand. Most of ’68, as it were, didn’t happen in 1968. It was, at most, the…
Free as a bird: the beauty and exhilaration of gliding
Over the years I’ve been in touch with a number of middle-aged professionals who, despite the success they’ve found in…
Spend, spend, spend at the court of Philip IV of Spain
‘Nine hours,’ boasted my friend the curator about his trip to the Prado. Nine! Two hours is my upper limit…
For peat’s sake: Britain’s bogs and moorland in crisis
In 2008, the Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie characterised the typical exponent of modern nature writing as ‘the lone enraptured male’.…
How can we know what dead people want?
In 1999, Patrick Hemingway published True at First Light, a new novel by his father Ernest. In his role as…
Alarm bells ring when I read about grown women and dolls
Mona — single, childless, pushing 60 — sells wooden dolls made by a carpenter friend, which she delicately costumes from…
Meeting the last Cuban fisherman to have known Ernest Hemingway
In Havana, one week before President Obama unthawed half a century of cold relations with Cuba, I talked to the…
The swallows that herald spring
Sweet lovers, Shakespeare reminds us, love the spring. How can they not? All that wonderfully wanton colour, all that sensual…
Why do the Japanese despise sex?
There are two sorts of people: those who can’t wait to grow up, and those who wish they never had…
The selfish shrink: life with Jacques Lacan
Peyrot, the chef at Le Vivarois in Paris, had a fascinating theory of how one of his regulars, the otherwise…
Down’s syndrome and dystopia in Jesse Bull’s Census
Census is a curious, clever novel. It depicts a dystopia with a father and his Down’s syndrome son journeying from…
The enduring enigma of Nefertiti
Often dubbed the Mona Lisa of the ancient world, the bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti is as immediately recognisable…
From Stansted to corporate swank: superstructuralism has a lot to answer for
Amid the thick of the Crimean war, Florence Nightingale dispatched a plea to the Times deploring the lethal conditions of…
Hobbit houses and 3-D homes – everything about these videos should be intensely irritating
Since 2006, someone called Kirsten Dirksen has been posting weekly videos on YouTube about ‘simple living, self-sufficiency, small (and tiny)…
Why British radio plays can’t compete with those from the Continent
To Herne Bay in Kent for the UK International Radio Drama Festival: 50 plays from 17 countries in 15 languages…
Once seen as the coming force in British painting, John Craxton deserves another look
In late April 1992, I was in Crete, interviewing the painter John Craxton. It was the week that Francis Bacon…
Flouncy, tasteless and unsubtle – I loved it: Ruthless! The Musical reviewed
Ruthless! The Musical is a camp extravaganza about ambitious actors stranded in small-town America. Sylvia St Croix, a pushy agent,…
This Hansel and Gretel has ‘classic’ stamped all over it
It’s been a good couple of weeks for cuddly toys in opera. A big floppy Eeyore is the only comfort…
Portentous, po-faced but also highly imaginative: The City & The City reviewed
BBC2 has a new drama series for Friday nights. The main character is a world-weary middle-aged police inspector with an…
Iceland’s national composer returns from oblivion
The lur is a horn, modelled in bronze after a number of 3,000-year-old instruments discovered at various archaeological sites across…
Plenty to wonder at – like who thought it was a good idea to make it: Wonderstruck reviewed
Wonderstruck is a film by Todd Haynes and you will certainly be struck by wonder, often. You will wonder at…
In The US of A, it’s a woman’s, woman’s, woman’s world!
New York If Albanian television had shown the programme CBS did last week — with a woman who has sex…
