On the run with Martin Luther King’s assassin
This newly translated novel by the Spanish writer Antonio Muñoz Molina is really two books, spliced together in alternating chapters.…
An exceptional new film about Jane Goodall unearths a remarkable love story
There are times when our national passion for cutting people down to size is a little tiring. I left Brett…
Why does James Purnell think radio needs to be ‘reinvented’?
Grade: A A dimbo pop reviewer for one of our national newspapers suggested that on this album, her ninth, Björk…
If you like Schoenberg, you’ll like Björk’s Utopia
At the launch of the Christmas radio schedules last week, James Purnell, director of radio (and much more) at the…
A non-sniggering look at the latest developments in the lucrative sex-robot market
This week on Channel 4, we watched a cheery 58-year-old American engineer called James going on a first date. He…
Huge audiences, gongs galore and Broadway awaits Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie opened at the Sheffield Crucible in February for a standard three-week run. The show is based…
The heart is unstirred in Haneke’s morose critique of a fractured society: Happy End reviewed
The films of Michael Haneke wear a long face. Psychological terror, domestic horror, sick sex, genital self-harm — these are…
After you’ve seen a few, you start to think, ‘Oh no, not another!’: Modigliani at Tate reviewed
‘It’s odd,’ Picasso once mused, ‘but you never see Modigliani drunk anywhere but at the corners of the boulevard Montmartre…
Some of the greatest moments at HCMF 2017 were the gentlest
The musicians of Ensemble Grizzana are arranged in the usual way for their concert at St Paul’s Hall in Huddersfield.…
Hollywood is the new Spanish inquistion
There’s fear and loathing in this town and in El Lay it’s even worse. Torquemada and Savonarola are in charge,…
The pure joy of a boring car
My pal Charlie inherited a car and a ride-on mower from an old pal. He kept the mower and the…
I’ve seen the new face of veterinary medicine – and I don’t like it
After a week of cold hosing, I decided I would have to get the vet to the small swelling on…
Bridge
Being on lead against a grand slam is bad for your blood pressure. So much is at stake (not least,…
London Classic
The London Classic gets underway this weekend in Olympia. The line-up is formidable, including the world champion Magnus Carlsen, his…
no. 485
White to play. This position is from a variation from Carlsen-Aronian, London Classic 2012. Black had already anticipated what was…
Double dactylic
In Competition No. 3026 you were invited to submit topical double dactyls. The double dactyl was dreamed up in…
2338: Fone
The unclued lights (one of two words) are of a kind. Elsewhere, ignore three accents. Across 1 Unethical…
to 2335: CHIPPY
The unclued lights are COMPUTING terms. First prize D.A. Henderson, Almonte, Ontario, CanadaRunners-up Robin Muir, Compton, West Sussex; Ian Shiels,…
My holiday hell with die-hard Remainers
I’m writing this on the easyJet flight back from Marrakech, where I have just spent a long weekend as a…
The inventions (and Welsh rarebit mix) that will change your life
At last. And just what you’ve been waiting for. The official Wiki Man guide to the best gadgets and gizmos…
Mary solves your problems: what’s the right response to a request for no presents?
Q. We have reached the age when we are receiving invitations from our friends for Golden Wedding celebrations. All the…
Glad tidings from a parish in Burgundy
Advent: I am sure that all readers deplore the vulgarly commercial aspects of the pre-Christmas season as much as I…
Can the beer-bike take on the Boris-bike?
In Amsterdam the courts have given leave to ban the bierfiets. Fiets is the Dutch for ‘bike’. (The plural is fietsen.)…
