Andrew Roberts’s guide to Churchill on screen
Gary Oldman has joined a long list of actors who have portrayed Winston Churchill — no fewer than 35 of…
Turning marble into cushions and stone into flesh: the magic of Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Seventeenth-century Roman art at its fullblown, operatic peak often proves too rich for puritanical northern tastes. And no artist was…
What Rwanda can teach us about gender equality
What an incredible statement we heard on My Perfect Country. ‘I can walk into a boardroom and forget I am…
The National Youth Orchestra showed that they’re the equal of any professional band
Everyone knows — don’t they? — that the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain is the UK’s youngest world-class symphony…
Three Billboards is a hoot and a blast, which I never thought I’d say about a rape movie
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri does, indeed, feature three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. They have been placed at the roadside…
Channel 4’s Kiri is already shaping up to be one of the TV highlights of the winter
These days a genuinely controversial TV drama series would surely be one with an all-white, male-led cast that examined the…
The latest astonishing achievement from the creators of War Horse
The Twilight Zone, an American TV show from the early 1960s, reinvented the ghost story for the age of space…
Taki: How I learned to write
Gstaad What I miss most up here in the Alps are the literary lunches conducted on the fly with writers…
Jeremy Clarke: Escaping from Colditz with Professor Brian Cox
By New Year’s Day I’d had enough of festivities. Instead of getting out of bed, I turned over, put my…
Melissa Kite: No more Cinderella complex; no more males rescuers needed
‘Not being rude, but I don’t think you should do any DIY,’ said the gamekeeper. He had just witnessed me…
How to bee-proof yourself
Kenya First comes a distant hum, rising in volume until I hear it coming straight at me like Niki Lauda…
Bridge
My friend Neil Mendoza and I had a great finish to 2017 when we won the Portland Club’s annual Auction…
On speed
Although it does not have the prestige of the Classical World Championship (to be staged in London in November), the…
no. 488
Black to play. This is from Carlsen-Anand, Riyadh Rapid 2017. The needle clash from the Rapid was Anand’s destruction of…
First thoughts
In Competition No. 3030 you were invited to provide a poem entitled ‘January’. I mentioned William Carlos Williams, R.S.…
2341: Durum, Durum
The unclued lights (one of two words) are of a kind. Across 1 Confines at convenience stores (5)…
to 2339: Interesting
Deployment of a GRABBING CRANE (1D) is required to complete entries at 11, 13, 21 and 23. 1A, 19 and…
Kids addicted to their screens? Don’t worry, there’s an app for that
Over Christmas, Caroline and I finally snapped about the amount of time our children were spending on their screens. If…
More Ashes tours like this and long-form cricket will be in trouble
So will the sight of poor Joe Root at Sydney, pale as a ghost and barely able to stand, heroically…
Mary solves your problem: Is it cultural appropriation for an English person to attend a Burns supper?
Q. Should the lady or the gentleman have the banquette in a restaurant? I’ve been brought up to believe that…
Tea in the hallowed grounds of Lord’s: The Long Room reviewed
As dreams of winning the Ashes became, well, the only word is ash, for 4-0 is not a number even…
Why do so many academics write so badly?
Why do so many academics write so badly? Those who make the study of language their life’s work are as…
Australian letters
Twelve bad men Sir: In his article ‘Guilty’, it appears that the cases quoted by Andrew Urban were heard by…
Blasphemy or art?
When Indonesian artist Arahmaia-ni Feisal first exhibited Lingga-Yoni, she received death threats. Against scrawled Arabic script, the 1994 artwork showed…
