Disney’s Aladdin
To my parents in the 1930s, the name Disney meant Mickey Mouse. Now the name is associated not only with…
Olympic shames
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ‘Welcome to hell’ was printed on a banner written in English at Rio de Janeiro’s international…
Sounds of the suburbs
In After the Vote, her talk for this week’s special edition of A Point of View (Radio 4) on the…
Pilgrimage’s progress
If Christian Britain is fading away, what will survive of it? One answer seems to be pilgrimage. In the past…
No. 417
White to play. This position is from Staunton-Horwitz, London (Game 3) 1846. How did White conclude his attack? Answers to…
Holiday reading
Holidays are a welcome chance to lose ourselves between the covers of a book, especially for those of us who…
Low life
One moment Trev and I were grooving on the dancefloor, Trev with his head bowed, his eyes closed, and his…
A familiar life (revisited)
A Life Revisited, as the modest, almost nervous, title suggests, mainly concerns Evelyn Waugh’s life with comments on but no…
Long life
When you are recovering from a stroke, you spend much of the time asleep. But when you are not sleeping,…
Worlds apart
Classics is a boastful subject. Even the name — classics — has an inner boast; as does the classics course…
Bridge
I’ve never had the courage to ‘psyche’ at the bridge table, but I grudgingly admire those who do. Sally Brock…
Daddy dearest
In 2004, after a 25-year estrangement, Susan Faludi’s father reappeared in her life via email. ‘I have had enough of…
Electric shock
To mark the UK’s decision to exit from the EU, I can think of no better example than the triple match…
The art of getting by
Naples, ragamuffin capital of the Italian south, is reckoned to be a hive of pickpocketing and black-market manoeuvrings. (A Neapolitan…
2269: Humiliation
Answers to clues in italics are to be subjected, before entry in the grid, to the treatment indicated by one…
Making waves
The tour guides of Ephesus, in Turkey, have a nice party trick to wake up their dozing coach passengers. As…
The truth about ‘post-truth politics’
The departure of Andrea Leadsom from the Conservative leadership race was a blow to pundits who claim we’re living in…
The wonder of knowledge
‘Transparency,’ remarks Eliade Jenks, narrator of Joanna Kavenna’s fourth novel, A Field Guide to Reality, ‘is an aspiration. But wouldn’t…
Cameron’s Legacy
Midway through his final cabinet meeting, David Cameron realised — with some horror — that it had turned into a…
Mournful and meticulous
After a curtain-twitching cul-de-sac, a Preston shopping precinct, and the Church of the Latter-Day Saints brought to Lancashire, Jenn Ashworth…
From Hegel to Riesling
John Stuart Mill did not describe the Conservatives as the stupid party. He merely said that although not all Tories…
Taking the pissoir
You have to imagine the lines that follow in separate fonts to get the full sense of the nonsense in…
Resistance to Acknowledging Country is futile
As another bleak winter NAIDOC Week draws to a close, let us reflect on the strange ritual that is the…
Where should this music be?
This must rank as the most heartbreaking example of premature chicken-counting in musical history. ‘Gotter has made a marvellous free…
Election notes
The problem with this marathon election campaign is that all the runners are sprinters. The punters don’t consider any of…
