China
Joanna Lumley is ‘thrilled’ by everything, even being spanked by a Mongolian shaman, in her new Trans-Siberian Adventure
For keen students of China, this week’s television provided yet more proof that Deng Xiaoping’s decision to open the country…
Was Genghis Khan the cruellest man who ever lived?
From the unpromising and desperately unforgiving background that forged his iron will and boundless ambition, Temujin (as Genghis Khan was…
The long shadow over China’s only children
This book starts with a Chinese boy so privileged and pampered that, at 21, he can’t open his own suitcase,…
New ways to destroy the world
Despite the offer of joy proposed in the subtitle, this is a deeply troubling book by one of Britain’s foremost…
Amazing. Thatcherite propaganda at the Young Vic
St James Theatre hosts a new play about Alexander McQueen (real name Lee), whose star flashed briefly across the fashion…
Letter from Kathmandu: China's beating India in the aid wars
After the first earthquake we were told that the chance of another one was 200 to 1. A fortnight later,…
Why American psychoanalysts are an endangered species
America’s psychoanalysts are becoming an endangered species
Whose hair are you buying?
British people buy £43 million worth of human hair a year. So who’s selling?
Carl Jung meets David Icke (and writes a book of bonkers business-speak)
What do you get if you cross renegade psychoanalyst Carl Jung with lizard-men conspiracist David Icke? It is a question…
Luxury isn’t the opposite of poverty but the opposite of vulgarity - but don’t tell the V&A
Different concepts of luxury may be inferred from a comparison of the wedding feast of Charles Bovary and Emma Rouault…
From diplomacy to disillusion with the Dalai Lama’s big brother
Can there ever have been another book in which one of the authors (Anne Thurston in this case) so effectively…
How Labour’s 50p tax trick has ended up helping George Osborne
Last week’s public borrowing and tax-receipt figures, headlined ‘Chancellor hails biggest monthly surplus in seven years’, received considerably less attention…
What’s good about austerity (whatever the Greeks think)
The only question I remember from my Oxford moral philosophy paper was ‘What is integrity and is it a virtue?’…
The real mystery is how it got published
As a boy I spent quite a lot of my free time trying to fake up ancient-looking documents. This hopeless…
The eurozone is strong enough to kick out Greece if Syriza wins
Ever since European Central Bank president Mario Draghi declared himself ready, in July 2012, ‘to do whatever it takes to…
Portrait of the week
Home The government, expecting a backbench rebellion over the European Arrest Warrant, did not present it for a separate vote…
Peter Phillips is mugged by a gang of Praetorius-loving six-year-old girls in China
We have read about the remarkable opening up of China in recent years: how many people live there and how…
Why the real winner from George Osborne’s ‘Google tax’ could be Nigel Farage
George Osborne’s promise to crack down on multinational companies’ avoidance of UK taxes by the use of impenetrable devices such…
What really scares Beijing about the Hong Kong protests
Hong Kong’s protests reflect not just tension with the mainland, but a great Chinese tradition. That’s what really scares Beijing
Am I wrong to fear another Tiananmen?
Looking at these protests, I fear another Tiananmen
The wars that really are about the oil
You can’t understand any of the world’s crises without understanding petropolitics
Banned – and booming: the strange world of Chinese golf
I was in Shanghai interviewing a Chinese film director and an actor. We were discussing government censorship. How did anyone…
Genghis Khan was tolerant, kind to women – and a record-breaking mass-murderer
Genghis Khan, unlike most Mongols in history, is a household name, regularly misappropriated as a right-wing totem. If we recall…
Pfizer’s already beaten Ed Miliband. Now it just needs to offer the right price
Pfizer will almost certainly have to offer more than its second bid of £50 a share for rival drug giant…
Putin is making the West's Cold Warriors look like fools
Russia is making the West look posturing, weak and divided
