Should gentlemen wear pearls?
There are few phrases more terrifying than ‘men’s fashion’. It reminds me of yuppies in salmon-coloured jorts on their way…
Hunting for the mother of three abandoned babies
Elsa had been alive less than an hour and her umbilical cord was still attached when she was wrapped in…
Richard Ellmann: the man and his masks
James Joyce’s celebrated biographer seemed a mild man to fellow academics – but his ambition and steely self-belief made him a callous husband and father
The Kurds have finally given in to Erdogan
All wars end, one way or another. One of the longest wars in the Middle East, between Turkey and Kurdish…
Beef farmers have been stitched up
An awkward delay in the unveiling of the Mansion House Accord was, we’re told, nothing more than a Downing Street…
Consorting with the enemy: The Propagandist, by Cécile Desprairies, reviewed
The debut novel by a historian of the Vichy regime is a personal J’Accuse, indicting the collaborators in her family for their part in France’s collapse in the second world war
Private battles: Twelve Post-War Tales, by Graham Swift, reviewed
The latest short stories focus on everyday traumas: ageing, PTSD in a former soldier, and the loss of a parent, spouse or grandchild
A David Bowie devotee with the air of Adrian Mole
Plodding through suburbia in Bowie’s footsteps, Peter Carpenter might be Sue Townsend’s hero incarnate – and there’s even an omnipresent friend called Nigel
From the early 1930s we knew what Hitler’s intentions were – so why were we so ill-prepared?
Intelligence provided by William de Ropp made the situation painfully clear, but the British political establishment, determined on peace, wilfully ignored the warnings
