We’re all caught in the insurance trap
In they pour, one after another, cheerily thudding on to the doormat: ‘Thank you for insuring with us again! Now,…
Why Reform has Wales in its sights
A spectre is haunting Wales. Fresh from Reform’s election victories in Westminster, Nigel Farage is turning his attention westwards, to…
Letters: Labour’s attack on farmers
Losing the plot Sir: Your leading article ‘Blight on the land’ (23 November) is right to call out the hypocrisy…
The SAS have been betrayed in the name of human rights
The SAS are worried. Britain’s most elite military unit have come face to face with the IRA, the Taliban and…
The World Championship
The World Championship match between Ding Liren and Dommaraju Gukesh is now underway in Singapore. The $2.5 million prize fund will…
Who chooses assisted suicide in Canada?
Sign of the times A petition for an immediate general election gathered 2.7 million signatures in five days. What are…
The Parties of the Year: my verdict
As the editor’s brief for this column is ‘Fomo-inducing’, I must push the boat out for my debut and am…
Anger management, ancient Greek-style
A professor of neurophysiology has announced that anger is a good thing with a ‘very useful purpose’, unless it turns…
My picks for Cheltenham and the Twelve
With farmers outraged, the nation’s biggest employers warning the Budget will bring increased prices and lost jobs and growth out…
The complicated etiquette of the empty train seat
The empty train seat looked inviting, and all three of us stared at it, then looked away, not daring to…
The glamour of the scallop
There is a gentle irony to the dish coquilles St Jacques: a decadent, rich preparation of one of our most…
Deeply impressive and beautiful: Akram Khan’s Gigenis reviewed
After taking a wrong turn culminating in the misbegotten Frankenstein, Akram Khan has wisely returned to his original inspiration in…
A keeper: ENO’s new The Elixir of Love reviewed
There was some light booing on the first night of English National Opera’s The Elixir of Love, but it was…
‘When a work lands the excitement is physical’: William Kentridge interviewed
Watching William Kentridge’s film Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot is like being submerged inside his mind, inside the coffee pot maybe.…
Besieged Odesa is still caught in a conflict of identities
Older citizens have identified with Russia all their lives – and Russian is still commonly spoken everywhere. But young Odesans are now using more Ukrainian as a symbol of resistance
Who’s still flying the flag for Britpop?
Alex James’s embrace of the term distinguishes him from his contemporaries. Miranda Sawyer reminds us of how much of the best 1990s music fell outside Britpop’s retromania
The subversive message of Paradise Lost
The great poem is mostly about revolution: how much individuals can revolt against God, father, church and king without bringing all the heavens down upon their heads
A father’s love: Childish Literature, by Alejandro Zambra, reviewed
The Chilean writer contributes obliquely to the fledgling genre of fatherhood literature, combining family vignettes with literary criticism and a ‘diary’ addressed to his infant son
Fortitude, emotional intelligence and wit – the defining qualities of Simon Russell Beale
The Shakespearean actor has taken on 18 of the great roles since his first gig at the RSC in 1985 and recalls them with insight, sensitivity and a sharp passion for language
The report of Christianity’s death has been an exaggeration
Immigration is revivifying congregations, with many people showing signs of spiritual openness, in contrast to the bare-knuckle rationalism that characterised New Atheism, says Rupert Shortt
The curse of distraction: Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber, reviewed
A former college professor prepares to write his long-gestated book on Montaigne, but finds his mind wandering from 1970s nudism to Balzac’s coffee dependency
Seeking forgiveness for gluttony, sloth and other deadly sins
The neurologist Guy Leschziner explores the medical conditions that might underlie extremes of human behaviour in a fascinating study that combines biology and psychology
Not for the faint-hearted: She’s Always Hungry, by Eliza Clark, reviewed
An unsettling collection of stories loosely connected by the theme of hunger contains graphic descriptions of violence and cannibalism – as the publishers see fit to warn us
