Drugs
The lying game
My favourite scene in the first episode of the new series of Benefits Street (Mondays, Channel 4) — now relocated…
Yes, skunk has changed me. But so have Zoran Mušic’s drawings
Two recent preoccupations have led me to the same reflection. The first is a Channel 4 programme on the effects…
Plurals
Someone on Radio 4 said she had heard about the sexism of Grand Theft Auto on ‘Women’s Hour’. It is…
Sin city
When to launch? For impresarios, this is the eternal dilemma. Autumn is so crowded with press nights that producers are…
Low life
‘Stand outside the fishmongers in 20 minutes and call this number,’ she said, ‘and I can arrange it.’ On Saturday…
Fear and libertarianism in Las Vegas
Great God, Vegas is an awful place. I realised this the moment I arrived. My cab driver — who’d been…
I may not know much about khat, but I know banning it is crazy
Khat is a leafy stimulant chewed mainly, I gather, by Somalis. This week the government banned its possession and sale.…
Amour fou
This novel is based on the life of Charles Baudelaire and the relationship he enjoyed — or endured — with…
High life
Gstaad ‘On ne touche pas une femme, même avec une fleur,’ says an old French dictum, one not always adhered…
Guns and neuroses
William S. Burroughs lived his life in the grand transgressive tradition of Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde and, like all…
Lies, damned lies
Alex Gibney’s The Armstrong Lies is fascinating as far as it goes but it may not go as far as…
Fortune’s fool
Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street will set the cat among the pigeons as a number of films do.…
Letters
A net gain Sir: Jamie Bartlett tries to balance plus and minus, and ends with zero (‘Little Brothers are watching…
An icon of our time
The Paul Flowers scandal says much about social and political priorities of modern Britain
