covid
There are no Ubers in the wilds of West Cork
My American guest kept telling me he was going to call an Uber and I could not persuade him that…
The punishing life of a chief whip
Simon Hart describes his frustrations as he grapples with the rivalries and petty jealousies of colleagues lobbying for peerages and knighthoods as the Tory party implodes
My parents prefer the NHS to me
The US marine left his long johns down the back of an armchair and the next guest complained that she…
Can you still afford to eat out?
Many of us will remember, misty-eyed, how things changed around the turn of the century. How Britain ceased to be…
Has the funeral director been sizing up the BB?
The funeral director down the lane is also the local taxi service, which partly explains why I see him drive…
The case against a ‘climate emergency’
January is the ideal month for gaining a sense of perspective. I’m increasingly convinced that the ‘climate emergency’ is another…
Farewell Justin Trudeau, the last of the lockdown tyrants
So farewell then, Justin Trudeau, last of the lockdown tyrants. Or should that be the last of the democratically elected…
Tate’s finances are on the skids and I think I know why
Among the many destructive after-effects of the pandemic, the impact of two years of lockdowns has had serious consequences for…
‘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.…
A geriatric Lord of the Flies: Killing Time, by Alan Bennett, reviewed
Chaos reigns at an old people’s home when Covid strikes, but the more rebellious residents won’t take the situation lying down
One damned thing after another: Britain’s crisis-ridden century so far
The Iraq war, the financial crisis, Brexit and Covid have seen many prime ministers blown off course. Will Keir Starmer be any luckier than his predecessors?
Have I finally found the most incongruous leftie?
As the disappointingly unmacho South African toddled off after giving us a lecture about hedgehogs, I declared the contest over.…
Paris, city of blight
You know that feeling when you haven’t seen someone for several years and when you do, you really notice the…
My parents and the sorry state of the NHS
Pushing through a crowded hospital corridor behind my father, I heard a voice calling me. Then a nurse grabbed me…
Why were Germany’s Covid files redacted?
There are two kinds of long Covid. One is a medical syndrome, the other manifests as a healthy obsession –…
Are we all becoming hermits now?
A new anthropological type is emerging, says Pascal Bruckner – the shrivelled, hyperconnected being who no longer needs others or the outside world
Ménage à trois: Day, by Michael Cunningham, reviewed
When Dan, his wife Isabel and her brother Robbie decide to spend lockdown together, claustrophobic domesticity develops into a painful love triangle
Baroness Mone ‘can’t see what we’ve done wrong’ over PPE pandemic profits
Baroness Mone: ‘I can’t see what we’ve done wrong’ Laura Kuenssberg’s show this morning was dominated by her interview with…
Fast and furious: America Fantastica, by Tim O’Brien, reviewed
As the avalanche of lies issuing from the White House morphs into the pandemic, Covid becomes in an engine of justice in this rollicking satire on Trumpworld
Why was an erroneous graph used to justify the second lockdown?
Two stories are emerging from the Covid Inquiry: one that it wants to tell and one that it does not.…
So which Naomi do you think I am? The saga of Klein vs Wolf
Naomi Klein had got used to being confused with Naomi Wolf. Then Covid hit and it was no longer a joke
If I told my new friend the truth, our friendship would be over
‘Achoo!’ was the first thing the girl sitting next to me on the plane said as I took my seat…
