America
China syndrome
Every day on his way to work at Harvard, Professor Allison wondered how the reconstruction of the bridge over Boston’s…
Beth Ditto: Fake Sugar
Boy is she fat, and getting fatter. I realise this is something we’re not meant to mention when talking about…
A monkey-brained case for Donald Trump
A few years ago I was asked to speak at a conference in New York. ‘Where would be the best…
Voters have no time for the flaccid centre
A depression has settled on the Liddle household ever since Norbert Hofer narrowly failed in his bid to become the…
High life
New York I have never seen anything like it. If Adolf Hitler were running for president, he would match…
Long may we laugh at our absurd demagogues
In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke warned that ‘pure democracy’ was as dangerous as absolute monarchy. ‘Of…
An American in Paris
Paris Opera Ballet plays hard to get. It doesn’t deign to travel all the way over here, thanks to a…
Nuclear waste
Miss Atomic Bomb celebrates the sub-culture that grew up around nuclear tests in 1950s America. The citizens of Nevada would…
Time out of mind
The Maids is a fascinating document. Written in 1947, Jean Genet’s drama portrays a pair of serving girls who enact…
Land of the Donald
Welcome to Trump’s America, where greed is great and viciousness beautiful
For EU but not for US
America is urging Britain to stay in the European Union. But it would never dream of joining a comparable organisation
Endurance test
The Revenant is a survival-against-the-odds film that so puts Leonardo DiCaprio through it I bet he was thinking, ‘I wish…
Sticking to his guns
Whenever there’s another mass shooting in America, like the massacre in San Bernardino last month, I think immediately of my…
Good cop, bad cop
One of the most shocking items of recent news has been the bald statistic that the number of people shot…
Aural wonderland
My resolution this New Year is to get to grips with podcasts, to brace up and embrace this new aural…
It is time to join the fight against IS in Syria
The Islamic State is as monstrous an enemy as we have seen in recent history. It crucifies and decapitates its…
I’ve never thought much of John Lennon’s music – until now
It’s probably blasphemous to admit that I’ve never thought very much of John Lennon’s music. Common sense tells me it…
Long life
When Robert Peston, the economics editor of the BBC, interviewed George Osborne on television in an open-necked shirt with collar…
Home is where the heart is
99 Homes is an American drama about house repossession. Bummer, you might think, but here is what you don’t yet…
A hero of our time
I have met Dr Kissinger, properly, only three times. First, in Cairo, in 1980, when, as a junior diplomat escorting…
Long life
While the Germans were raining bombs on London during the second world war, the architects’ department of London County Council…
The real theatre of war
The history of ‘great events’, Voltaire wrote, is ‘hardly more than the history of crimes’. Physically, the war in Asia…
Anniversary fatigue
There’s a part of me that thinks OK, we’ve heard enough now, one year on from the beginning of the…
Funny business
What does it take to be a stand-up comic? Jackie Mason has absolutely no idea
High life
If any of you sees Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, walking around with a begging bowl in his…
