No man is an island
Divorced from other people and the real world, we are all becoming increasingly dehumanising, according to Matthew Crawford’s The World Beyond Your Head
What a Day
The blue sky is Sunni. The white clouds are Shia. The sun is happy. The shops are crowded. The planet…
All the pomp of family life
Anne Enright’s The Green Road, a novel about escaping, returning and death, is beautifully executed says Ruth Scurr
Two wheels good
Harry Mount is exhilarated by cycling — but finds Paul Smethurst’s history of the bicycle disappointingly stodgy
Turing’s long shadow
Another gloomy rendering of his life (and death) might disappoint Alan Turing’s shade, says Sinclair McKay
A passion for men and intrigue
Elusive in life, the capricious Moura Budberg has eluded her latest biographers too, says Clare Mulley
Wilde about the boy
Oscar Wilde had a fixation with Thomas Chatterton’s early promise and lonely death — which eerily mirrored his own, says Richard Davenport-Hines
Messy genius
On the centenary of his birth, we celebrate the all-embracing genius of the great director, actor, theatre maker and story-teller
Tribes of one
Plus: a powerful new display of paintings and prints by Gillian Ayres at Alan Cristea Gallery that suggests she deserves a proper retrospective and an intriguing selection of painting by Fiona Rae at Timothy Taylor Gallery
Rock bottom
Somewhere in this narcissistic faux-fairytale is a romcom, bound and gagged and locked in the trunk
Pinter without the bus routes
Plus: another dud from the National, Carol Ann Duffy’s Everyman. Is Rufus Norris the David Moyes of theatre?
Boys on the march
Plus more boys on the march: Christopher Wheeldon’s Mesmerics makes BalletBoyz’ latest worth catching
Ways of hearing
Kasper Holten’s psychoanalytic focus is a bit too exclusive but the cast and orchestra are magnificent
Home and away
Plus: a naughty piece of audio artwork involving graphic sex and Portland stone and a truly innovative piece of radio from Lemn Sissay on Radio 4
Real life
When she bursts on to your screens in a reality TV show, you will understand what happened next
Bridge
I couldn’t help snorting when I came across an article in the Guardian last week (about the ongoing legal battle…
Brain games
This week I continue with my analysis of Nigel Short’s recent animadversions upon the differences between the male and female…
No. 361
White to play. This is from Polgar-Short, -Buenos Aires 2000. Here we return to the theme of Judit Polgar’s massive…
Iffy
In Competition No. 2896 you were invited to take Kipling’s ‘If’ and recast it on behalf of a politician on…
2210: Game theory
Four unclued lights can be arranged to form an eight-word excerpt from a quotation (in ODQ). One of these lights…
