Micro-managing the terror
Stalin’s latest biographer dispenses with the myths and gives us all the facts — which far surpass any fabricated horror
Demonised Barber of Fleet Street
Dr Johnson’s Jamaican man-servant remains Gough Square’s invisible man, despite Michael Bundock’s years of research
God help me shippies!
Amitav Ghosh’s Opium Wars trilogy reaches a deafening finale with Flood of Fire
Restoration drama
William Cook says a rebuilt Euston Arch would herald an architectural renaissance; Stephen Bayley thinks it would be civic cowardice and a betrayal of progressive Victorian values
Eastern reflections
Western modernism - from the paintings of Monet to the land art of Walter De Maria - feels supremely at home on the paradisiacal art island of Naoshima
Moving pictures
Like the High Line, the Whitney has grown into a monster, says James Fenton, and in its new show, America Is Hard To See, the country’s minor artistic talents attempt to topple the art stars
Dedicated follower of fascism?
His first building was for the Soviets, so it might be more accurate to call this celebrated modernist a promiscuous tart - like all architects
Two batons better
Christian Thielemann and Andris Nelsons apparently split the orchestra down the middle. So why don’t they hire them both?
Yank bait
Plus: Kevin Spacey has destroyed the Old Vic by installing sparkly floors and corny balconies. The theatre’s new production of High Society is similarly nightclubby
Sexed-up pacifism
What exactly is the point of this earnest documentary surveying the anti-war marches of 2003?
Lost boys
Plus: more lost boys from the CBSO and Andris Nelsons in an electric concert performance of Parsifal
Woolf haul
Plus: something peculiar, unsettling and sensational from Mark Baldwin and Gavin Higgins for Rambert Dance
Strange ways
Though it is to be congratulated on its bold rejection of Sunday-night convention, there’s still way too much hamming up in BBC One’s eccentric new drama series
Object lesson
An epic new Radio 4 series that shows how to do history on radio without Neil MacGregor
Low life
The tireless, self-confident fashion in which they go about their business fills me with admiration
Long life
Len McCluskey might approve, but this ruthless system doesn’t make Finnish roads any safer
Bridge
I was lucky enough to sit next to David Gilmour of Pink Floyd at a friend’s dinner the other night.…
Reichenbach falls
The former world champion Vladimir Kramnik recently espoused an opening system which I elaborated in a tournament in Germany in 1975.…
Puzzle no. 363
White to play. This is from Kramnik-Svidler, Russian Team Championship, Sochi 2015. The black pieces are in a tangle and…
21st-century Belloc
In Competition No. 2898 you were invited to give an update on one of the children in Cautionary Tales who…
Plus ça change
The unclued Across lights (Individually or as a pair) are defined by the unclued Down lights (individually or as a…
