Only divine intervention can save Labour
A party that can foretell the future stands a very good chance of success. Given Labour’s record of U-turns, they…
A fogey’s guide to cryptocurrency
All innovations seem unseemly to fogeys. When bitcoin, the first of the cryptocurrencies, was launched in 2009, we dismissed it…
No, the internet is not bad for your child
The forces arranged in favour of banning social media for under-16s are powerful and wide-ranging. The unlikely alliance includes the…
Letters: A teacher’s lessons for Rod Liddle
How to kill reading Sir: I am appalled by the response to Andrew Watts’s concerns about the teaching of reading…
Lima’s monument to memory
In the pantheon of South America’s great hotels, the Gran Hotel Bolivar’s place is assured. Stand anywhere in the Plaza…
Under 50? You’re never getting a state pension
Last week the Bank of England was warned to prepare for a financial crisis triggered by the discovery of extraterrestrial…
Want to get rich? Invest like an American
Ramit Sethi wants to make you rich. He is not a household name in Britain, but the Stanford psychology graduate…
Is any other investment as good as gold?
Last year might have proved a good time to own shares in the chip-maker Nvidia, along with the booming American…
Bookshops deserve tax breaks
My Davos spy disguised as an Uber Eats driver sent word that this year’s World Economic Forum was rammed ahead…
The depressed duck detective is back
Grade: B– It’s a duck, except he’s a detective. Or a detective, except he’s a duck. Anyway he wears a…
Why is this low-grade Ayckbourn play in the West End?
Woman in Mind is a dyspeptic sitcom set in 1986 starring Sheridan Smith as Susan, a moaning Home Counties housewife…
The worst Agatha Christie adaptation I can remember
When it comes to Agatha Christie adaptations, there are normally two possible responses to the denouement. One is a deep…
Three cheers for Poems on the Underground
The idea for Poems on the Underground was thought up by a New Yorker 40 years ago this month. This…
Why I will always have time for Bernard Butler
Bernard Butler has popped up a couple of times in this column, but not alone – once, with two fellow…
Rattle’s glorious Janacek
The Czech author Karel Capek is probably best known for his plays: high-concept speculative dramas such as R.U.R. and The…
Dazzling: Hawaii, at the British Museum, reviewed
Climb the Reading Room steps to reach the British Museum’s dazzling Hawaii exhibition, and you perform an obeisance. At the…
What drama gets right and wrong about science
A few days after Tom Stoppard’s death last month, Michael Baum, a distinguished surgeon, wrote a letter to the Times.…
A satirical masterpiece: Blinding, by Mircea Cartarescu, reviewed
Bucharest is transformed into a phantasmic playground in this surreal take on Romania’s horrific recent history
Who will rule the Arctic?
When it comes to icebreakers, the US pales by comparison with Russia in the growing struggle for control of polar shipping routes and mineral resources
Time for a reckoning: Vigil, by George Saunders, reviewed
A mega-rich oil magnate is offered a last-minute opportunity for repentance in this Christmas Carol for our times, targeting corporate greed and consumerism
Will we ever stop predicting the end of civilisation?
A self-destructive dynamism is at work in the West, argues the latest prophet of doom, Paul Kingsnorth, as we dethrone the old gods and install the new ones – of power, self and money