Putin the peacemaker
When Russia entered the Syrian civil war in September 2015 the then US secretary of defense, Ash Carter, predicted catastrophe…
The great unknowns
Have you heard about the invention that cures your smartphone addiction? Whereas normally you can’t go more than a minute…
Low spirits
You may have noticed that we’re in the throes of a 21st-century Gin Craze. It’s not as serious as the…
Soho drinking clubs
When someone says ‘Let’s go for a drink at my club’, what do you imagine? A grand St James’s establishment…
Notebook
To Skibo Castle for a four-day wedding, a dream of super-luxury and great good fun. I was struck by how…
Re-discovering Cook
Despite an unpleasant resurgence of anti-British, anti-European political correctness, Captain James Cook (1728-1779) remains one of the world’s greatest explorers.…
Get a life
In Competition No. 3018 you were invited to take your lead from Meik Wiking — CEO at the Happiness Research…
Dear Mary
Q. We have moved from London into a rural area where we are preparing for the first visit of a…
Lost in the metropolis
Richard Rogers is to architecture what Jamie Oliver is to cookery. It is not enough for either of them just…
Octopus beaks and snake soup
Driving across Japan’s Shikuko island, the food and travel writer Michael Booth pulls into a filling station to find, alongside…
That’s no lady
Did I enjoy this novel? Yes! Nevertheless, it dismayed me. How could John Banville, whom I’ve admired so much ever…
Band of bickering brothers
There aren’t many downsides to being a film critic, but one of them is being asked to name your favourite…
The keys to Chinese
The history of industry is the story of the reduction of complexity to easily manageable, replicable components or actions. But…
The worst things happen at sea
This horrifying and engrossing book could scarcely be improved upon. In this age of HRHs Harry, William and Kate-led openness…
August Auguste
In 1959 the formidable interviewer John Freeman took the Face to Face crew to the 81-year-old Augustus John’s studio. The…
A poet in prose
Literary reputation can be a fickle old business. Those garlanded during their lifetimes are often quickly forgotten once dead. Yet…
Who is Sylvia – what is she?
In May 1956, three months after meeting Ted Hughes, one before they will marry, Sylvia Plath writes to her mother…
Our islands’ story
Britain has 6,000 islands. Not as many as Sweden’s 30,000 but quite enough to be going on with. Only 132…
Tales out of school
In 1952, the five-year-old Michael Rosen and his brother were taken on holiday along the Thames by their communist parents.…
Wandering Jews
Simon Schama is an international treasure. Whether on screen or in print, he is all energy, enthusiasm, dramatic gestures, emotional…
Real life
How reassuringly like old times it is, going to a God-forsaken retail park with Stefano. We mooch about the DIY…
Boris, the conviction politician
I’m writing this from the Conservative party conference where I can report that Boris Johnson, who has just wowed the…
Diary
The best reason for visiting party conferences is to sniff the air. It’s fragments of conversation drifting through a bar,…
The Merry Widow
Not everyone celebrates a 55th anniversary, but if you are a national ballet company at the peak of its form,…
Monarch was an airline from an earlier era – but were its owners to blame for its demise?
Monarch Airlines was the ghost of an earlier age of holiday travel. When I used to see its planes lined…
