Obamacareless
The president has squandered political capital on healthcare reform and brought America to the brink
A POINT OF VIEW
Politicians wouldn't recognise a good view if it hit them. Everyone else, however, cares too much
Breaking omertà
According to the medical historian Professor Sonu Shamdasani, Sigmund Freud was not the best, nor actually the most interesting, psychoanalyst…
From underdog to top dog
Malcolm Gladwell's new book tells us we're all little Davids who can trounce giants
Salad days
The early 1990s in Russia were hungry years. At the time, I was a student, too idle to barter and…
Black and beyond
When Prince Albert died in 1861, aged 42, Queen Victoria, after briefly losing the use of her legs, ordered that…
Grand old master of modernism
How minor is minor? ‘Rings a bell’ was more or less the response of two English literature graduates, now successful…
Funny, warm and eccentric
It must have been awful for Diana and Duff Cooper to be separated from their only child during the war,…
Going nowhere
Just how interesting you find The Fifth Estate may entirely depend on how interested you are in the whistle-blowing site…
First impressions
Which album would you gladly hear again and again? Marcus Berkmann picks Spirit of Eden
The good and the ugly
The Watts Gallery, just outside Guildford off the Hog’s Back, is a delightful place to visit at any season, with…
Divine comedy
Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus (but if it’s given in English, why not The Bat? Does that somehow sound too unglamorous?)…
The rivals
A feast of pleasures, and some annoyances, at the Trike. Handbagged, by Moira Buffini, is a fictional account of the…
Watching the detectives
Did Dr Jekyll turn into Jack the Ripper? Besides becoming evil Mr Hyde, did Robert L. Stevenson’s fictional creation morph…
Finding a connection
Why are we still listening to the radio in 2013, to an outdated technology that has hardly changed in manufacture…
Red carpet attraction
Live broadcasts into cinemas have become something of a commonplace, and a welcome one: operas, theatre performances, even radio programmes.…
