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…
My date with Steve Bannon
Gstaad The muffled sound of falling snow is ever-present. It makes the dreary beautiful and turns the bleak into magic.…
Was the easyJet representative a fascist?
Earbuds in. Speed walking to Grant Lazlo’s ‘Heard It Through The Grapevine’. A corridor, a left fork, a moving walkway,…
My unhealthy obsession with Brian May
‘I bet Brian May isn’t lying on his back in a field shelter wondering how long it’s going to take…
The wisdom of toads, termites and wait-a-bit thorns
Laikipia Off Madagascar the other day the Indian Ocean gave birth to a little storm called 11S. As its gyre…
Bridge
I’ve never forgotten a conversation I had some years ago with the talented, blunt-talking Norwegian player Espen Erichsen. We were…
Berlin
This weekend the Candidates tournament commences in Berlin to decide the challenger who will face Magnus Carlsen for the world…
no. 496
White to play. This position is from Mamedyarov-Savchenko, Moscow 2015. White’s forthcoming tactic led to a decisive material gain. What…
Six plus
In Competition No. 3038 you were invited to provide a (longer) sequel to the six-word story ‘For sale: baby shoes,…
2349: Novel
Clockwise round the grid from 3 run the names (7,4,5,6,8,8,5,6) of four characters in a novel followed by the initials…
to 2346: the name of the game
The unclued entries are all names for pontoon; extra words in 27, 31, 33, 34 and 36 needed the letters…
We are being destroyed by tribalism. Let’s get rid of it
Amy Chua’s latest book, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, is a difficult read for anyone who…
Knighting Bradley Wiggins so early was just asking for trouble
The incomparable Roger Bannister, whose passing marks the end of our links with a vanished age of sporting innocence, could…
Dear Mary: My daughter’s new boyfriend isn’t on Facebook – how do I snoop?
Q. Recently I held a party at which some people were meeting each other for the first time. One social-climbing…
As restaurants go, it’s important – and it knows it: the River Café reviewed
Jilly Cooper’s fictional hero Rupert Campbell-Black has ‘never been to Hammersmith’. I have but I wish I hadn’t. I love…
We’ve been saying ‘wrap up warm’ for a thousand years
In June 1873, Oswald Cockayne shot himself. He was in a state of melancholy, having been dismissed by King’s College…
Australian letters
The point of Cory? Sir: I am a paid up member of the Australian Conservatives. Sadly, I suspect the good…
Three billboards outside Canberra, ACT
Back in 2009, when Malcolm Turnbull lost the federal Liberal leadership, the feisty Bronwyn Bishop said that the members had…
Best practice democracy?
People protesting against both the concept and practice of authoritarian government has now become a worldwide phenomenon. It seems high…
Brown study
I have a minority opinion on two big political issues. Michaelia Cash was right and should not apologise for anything.…
Business/Robbery etc
Bed-wetters are on the move; the federal parliamentary Liberal party’s problem is now a liquid liability in Collins and O’Connell…
