Ideal homes
Artists, poets and philosophers have not paid much attention to Milton Keynes …although comedians have. This urban experiment has been…
Acting with a capital ‘A’
Let’s be clear: Jackie is a better performance than it is a film, although I suspect the performance will carry…
Great leaps forward
In the 1940s Lucian Freud took another young painter, Sandra Blow, up to the top of a bombed church in…
Safe and sound
This week the Southbank Centre began its ‘Belief and Beyond Belief’ festival — a series of concerts and talks claiming…
Safe and sound
This week the Southbank Centre began its ‘Belief and Beyond Belief’ festival — a series of concerts and talks claiming…
Remembrance of things past
The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Now it arrives on…
Remembrance of things past
The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Now it arrives on…
Death rattle
The Barbican website warns us that Ligeti’s opera Le grand macabre ‘contains very strong language and adult themes’. The strong…
Death rattle
The Barbican website warns us that Ligeti’s opera Le grand macabre ‘contains very strong language and adult themes’. The strong…
Spot the ball
The purest form of radio is probably sports commentating, creating pictures in the mind purely through language so that by…
Spot the ball
The purest form of radio is probably sports commentating, creating pictures in the mind purely through language so that by…
Bridge
The Friday night IMPs game at the Young Chelsea is still the best game around. Some of yesterday’s internationals may…
Calling Dr Hunt
Whatever she may think about her quaint attachment to the Gold Coast being ‘within the rules’, former Health minister Sussan…
Calling Dr Hunt
Whatever she may think about her quaint attachment to the Gold Coast being ‘within the rules’, former Health minister Sussan…
As the rich get richer and Trump takes power, Davos Man should be very afraid
I’ve objected before to the fact that supporters of Oxfam shops are unknowingly funding not only an aid charity but…
A cold case from the Cold War
It is a chastening thought that Boris Johnson’s responsibilities now include MI6. Alan Judd’s latest novel is particularly interesting about…
Look back in anger
Pankaj Mishra’s Age of Anger wants to explain how we got to a world in ‘a pervasive panic… that anything…
Bridges and troubled waters
During David Cameron’s years as prime minister, an unobtrusive figure could be seen slipping out of the back entrance to…
Piety and wit
During the second world war, while one brother was editing Punch as a national institution (‘Working with him was a…
Wild, wild women
Who is the least likely candidate for an animated princess movie? That’s the question former DreamWorks animator Jason Porath asked…
Piers Morgan is a shameless brown-noser. But maybe he’s on the right track
A few weeks ago I was having an argument with Piers Morgan on Twitter. Oh God, is that really how…
May has taken back control
‘No negotiation without notification’ has been the EU’s mantra since 24 June last year. Its leaders have been determined that…
The Spectator’s Notes
It is hard to be shocked by anything in these tumultuous times, but I was brought up short by the…
Dual control
Revolting (Tuesdays) is the BBC2 comedy series that spawned the now-infamous sketch ‘Real Housewives of Isis’. It has been watched…
Doing Brexit right
From the start of the European Union referendum campaign, competing visions of Brexit have been advocated. To Nigel Farage, the…
