Transgender activists and the real war on women
How hard is it for women to talk freely about sex, gender and the law? Not very, I used to…
Britain must ‘take back control’ from Russia
Mischief and mayhem work better for Russia than steady cooperation with the western powers. This at least is what the…
In London, dinner parties and murder exist side by side
Last month, a 17-year-old business student of Somali extraction, Abdikarim Hassan, was knifed to death outside a corner shop, 70…
A very EU coup: Martin Selmayr’s astonishing power grab
Martin Selmayr has always dreamed of being known beyond the Brussels bubble. His wish has now been granted, albeit in…
The Katherine Mansfield House
One of the more surprising attractions of Wellington, New Zealand’s small but perfectly formed capital city, is what might be…
Napoleon’s dazzling victories invited a devastating backlash
On 20 July 1805, just three months before the battle of Trafalgar destroyed a combined French and Spanish fleet, the…
Thomas Paine: spendthrift, scrounger and polemicist of genius
‘We have it in our power to begin the world over again.’ Ronald Reagan made this most unconservative of lines…
Why I now find listening to Beethoven nauseating
Stephen Bernard has led an institutionalised life. Behind the doors of the church presbytery, at public school, on hospital wards…
The CIA, the Vietnam deserters and the aptly named Operation Chaos
‘Keep my name out of it’, was the fairly standard reply when Matthew Sweet started researching the story of the…
Only an idiot would choose to live at any other time than the present
Steven Pinker’s new book is a characteristically fluent, decisive and data-rich demonstration of why, given the chance to live at…
The spectacular suicide mission of the world’s greatest battleship
In April 1945, the Japanese battleship Yamato — the largest and heaviest in history — embarked upon a suicide mission.…
Jessie Greengrass’s Sight is unashamedly philosophical
The precarious stasis of late pregnancy offers the narrator of Jessie Greengrass’s exceptional first novel a space — albeit an…
The miseries of diplomatic life: heat, bedbugs and endless cocktail parties
The arrival at a new foreign posting for a junior diplomat’s wife in the first half of the last century…
Every day is mother’s day for writers: most have strong feelings about their mothers, though not always of love
You attempt to write a review with a stiff dose of objectivity, but it’s hard not to start with a…
Shadows of the past are ominously present in a trio of memorable first novels
The Shangri-Las’ song ‘Past, Present and Future’ divides a life into three, Beethoven-underpinned phases: before, during and after. Each section…
Doris Lessing: from champion of free love to frump with a bun
‘I am interested only in stretching myself, in living as fully as I can.’ Lara Feigel begins her thoughtful book…
Peak Picasso: how the half-man half-monster reached his creative – and carnal – zenith
By 1930, Pablo Picasso, nearing 50, was as rich as Croesus. He was the occupant of a flat and studio…
Nils Frahm is clever with textures – but it’s the melodies which drag you in
Grade: A Here we are in that twilit zone where post-techno and post-ambient meets modern classical, a terrain that has…
I never expected to last the full hour: Carla Bruni’s C’est la Vie reviewed
You can’t move for women’s voices on the airwaves at the moment — Julie Walters on Classic FM leading off…
There’s much to adore about the Old Vic’s Fanny and Alexander
Fanny & Alexander opens like a Chekhov comedy and turns into an Ibsen tragedy. Ingmar Bergman’s movie script, adapted by…
A short history of French musical decadence
My two attempts to see Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at the Guildhall School were frustrated by the weather. Forced back…
Magnificent paintings – oddly curated: All Too Human reviewed
In the mid-1940s, Frank Auerbach remarked, the arbiters of taste had decided what was going to happen in British art:…
Intriguing but also baffling: The Assassination of Gianni Versace reviewed
By common consent, including Bafta’s, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story was one of the best TV dramas…
The former head of the RSC finds cause for optimism in the Arts Council cuts
He looks like an absent-minded watchmaker, or a homeless chess champion, or a stray physics genius trying to find his…
Hammer horror
You Were Never Really Here is a fourth feature from Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About…
