Falling out with Love
Volcanic fallings out within bands are an ever-recurring motif in the history of rock music. There’s an obvious reason for…
A choice of art books
Suitably for a year so full of cataclysms and disturbing portents, 2016 is the quincentenary of the death of Hieronymus…
Pandora’s box
While I’ve read plenty of books worse than Television: A Biography, I can’t immediately think of any that were more…
Blackouts and white coats
In the cult Steve Martin film The Man With Two Brains, a doctor falls in love with a surgically removed…
A mystery, even to herself
Armed with their tiny Leicas and Nikons, most of the great postwar ‘street’ photographers liked to be unobtrusive; they wanted…
Heaven, hell and Northampton
A century ago, Sir Hubert Parry set Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ to music. The lyric had been written 100 years earlier and…
Christmas cookbooks
New books by Raymond Blanc and Pierre Koffmann retell the truth that British food came back from the brink. If…
Joking apart
A horse walks into a bar.… David Grossman takes the opening line of an old joke for his title, which…
For king and countryside
In July 1915 the poet Edward Thomas enlisted as a soldier with the Artists’ Rifles, even though, at the age…
Atlas shrugs
In his Forward Prize-winning collection of 2014, A Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion, Kei Miller’s hero describes…
Britain’s winning hand
On the morning after the European Union referendum, Britain looked like a country in crisis. The Prime Minister had resigned,…
In praise of Advent
The first Sunday of Advent is 27 November this year. For those of us who prefer Advent services to Christmas…
No Khan do
Let’s try a thought experiment, shall we? If a senior adviser to my old boss, Boris Johnson, had celebrated John…
France’s new right
The result in France in the first round of the Les Républicains party’s primary elections marks the political death of…
Permanent ink
Brooklyn Shall I have my sister’s skin peeled off for display after she dies? Specifically, the tattooed bits — the…
The devil they know
You will, by now, be familiar with the argument: that Donald Trump’s triumph in the American presidential election represents a…
Exodus from Gambia
A ticket to paradise comes very cheap in Gambia — as long as you’re headed in the right direction. Thomas…
Class act
I wish I could say that some of my best friends are working-class, but it’s not true. I do have…
High life
New York If only my wordsmith friend Jeremy Clarke had been with me. What fun he’d have had with…
Twins, caesarians and Centrelink
I had finished work the previous day in preparation for a fortnight of paternity leave. My wife was on the…
Soft power, hard outcomes
Wednesday’s edition of 7:30 included a fascinating piece on the campaign of the Chinese government to make China the world…
Don’t tell the Greens, but I’ve been to Israel
Don’t tell the Greens, but I’ve gone to Israel. After possibly the best midnight flight to Jerusalem since Mohammed’s horse…
Letters
Prisons and the public Sir: Your leading article on the sorry state of our prisons (19 November) was very welcome.…
In praise of Advent
The first Sunday of Advent is 27 November this year. For those of us who prefer Advent services to Christmas…
The devil they know
You will, by now, be familiar with the argument: that Donald Trump’s triumph in the American presidential election represents a…
