Binge benefits
The occasional alcoholic blowout is much to be preferred to steady, everyday drinking
Notes on…Walking in the Auvergne
The homicidal sheepdog that launched itself at me from behind a grassy hillock, had the look of a demented hearth…
The plight of the predestined
There could be no backsliding while preparing the next plot, murder or battle in the French Wars of Religion, says Hywel Williams
The inside story
Many books have been written about the corruption, venality and incestuousness that characterise Washington DC, but none has been as…
A legend in his own time
The last time David Peace wrote a novel about football he got his publishers sued for libel, which may help…
What we really really didn’t want
The title of Alwyn W. Turner’s book could deter readers. Even the Hollywood film The Secret Lives of Dentists promised…
Beyond this, nothing
This may sound a little orientalist, but Tangier has some claim to being the most foreign city in the world.…
Kill or cure
Charles Cullen, an American nurse, murdered several hundred patients by the administration in overdose of restricted drugs. Hospitals should be…
Ruthless Roundheads
Adrian Tinniswood, so gifted and spirited a communicator of serious history to a wide readership, here brings a number of…
Last man standing
Like Mel Brooks’s character the Two Thousand-Year-Old Man, Peter Lewis has met everyone of consequence. Though he doesn’t mention being…
A guide to the Man Booker longlist
The Man Booker prize has strong years and weak years. There have been ones when the judges have succeeded in…
The Email About Writing the Poem
I’ve been occupying myself trying to write a long-ish poem. It’s an odd sensation writing a poem. You’re trying to…
Are you sitting comfortably…
Robert Gore-Langton on Oxford’s new Story Museum, which aims to put stories into young lives deprived of books
Exuberant genius
Whenever Michael Tippett’s first opera, The Midsummer Marriage, is revived, there is a chorus of voices, including mine, complaining that…
Dodgy dealings
High summer and it’s blockbuster time. The Donmar’s latest show is by the acclaimed Nick Payne, whose play about string…
Edinburgh impressions
Lloyd Evans finds politics everywhere: not only in the architecture but at the Fringe too
A long hard look
My wife says you can always tell a self-portrait by the quality of its self-regard. There’s something about the eyes…
The grace of childhood
What Maisie Knew is an adaptation of the Henry James 1897 novel, updated to Manhattan in the now, and is…
Harrowing journey
One of Boy’s more annoying teenage rules of thumb is that, if Dad likes it, it must be crap. This…
Eavesdropping
It must have sounded like such a great idea. To gather a group of thinkers, agitators, experts, intellectuals and media…
A family affair
Martha Wainwright was keeping it in the family at the Union Chapel in Islington last week. Arcangelo, the singer-songwriter’s three-year-old…
High life
Just before I left Gstaad for the Greek islands I went to dinner at Eugenie Radziwill’s, whose other guests included…
Low life
Golly my testicles are shrinking fast. At this rate by Christmas they’ll be down to the size of garden peas.…
Real life
At last. I’ve waited a long time for this moment. I’ve been through years of torture at the hands of…
