What makes Turkey tick
I remember an American author once saying she wrote about love and friendship because, after all, these were the fundamental…
War games
For a long time the Australian military has been very wary about public discussions, so this first book is a…
My mother, my self
To tell this story of his search for a mother lost to mystery in early infancy, its author uses the…
Niche
Jonathan Swift, in his satirical poem ‘An Epistle to a Lady’, says modestly: ‘If I can but fill my Nitch,/…
In a gun country
Picking a day at random, ‘an unremarkable Saturday in America’, the Guardian journalist Gary Younge identified ten children and teenagers…
Portrait of the week
Home Theresa May was ‘quite likely’ to invoke Article 50 in January or February 2017, Donald Tusk, the president of…
Root and branch
Eventually,’ said Michelangelo Pistoletto, ‘it became a movement. In fact, I believe that arte povera was the last true movement.…
Food of love
Modern Britain scratches its head over children who are overfed, not underfed, while guilt-ridden mothers stand accused of feeding children…
Belly of an architect
Depending on your point de vue, Haussmann’s imperial scheme for Paris created townscape of thrilling regularity or boring uniformity. Whatever;…
Skinny dipping
For a 21st-century gallery, a Victorian collection can be an embarrassment. Tate Modern got around the problem by offloading its…
Making history
‘A fool’s errand’. That is how Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and…
Nicholas Serota
In this week of toadying obsequies after the (rather late) retirement of Sir Nicholas Serota from his imperial throne at…
In a league of her own
The Emperor seems like a worthy lesson in Ethiopian history. Haile Selassie’s final days are recounted by a retinue of…
Cautionary tale
The closing credits of National Treasure (Channel 4, Tuesday) contain the usual disclaimer that any resemblance between its characters and…
The Third way
We now think of Radio 3 as the music station, but when it was created in 1946 as the Third…
No fear
I can’t say I care for zombies particularly or even understand them — OK, they’re the living dead, but what…
High Life
Sicily Under the watchful eye of Mount Etna the storied past of the island lies parched and yellowish, but as…
A woman of some importance
Searching for a 12-month stretch in the life of Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923–2013) that might illuminate the kind of person…
Low life
One side of the hostel overlooked Waterloo station’s 22 platforms. Trains departed and arrived at the rate of two or…
And from left to left we have…
Corbyn’s allies on the hard left are lining up to reform the Labour party. Some make him look like a…
Real life
Out of the blue, I woke up one morning and my feet didn’t work. I opened my eyes, swung my…
Borderline sanity
Only now does Angela Merkel concede that her admitting a million refugees last year was a mistake. It was obvious…
Long life
The publication of private emails by Colin Powell has spread panic in Washington. Now nobody feels safe. Some prominent people…
Winemaking with convictions
Any Australian who admits to not having convict ancestors loses caste. When granted a coat of arms, the smart ones…
Wild life
Laikipia For a rancher north of Mount Kenya, a man’s best legacy might be a good bloodline of Boran beef…
