Japan
Mixed blessings
Japan is the only developed country where people openly espouse two distinct and incompatible religions at the same time —…
Divine comedy
You have to be quite silly to take Gilbert and Sullivan seriously. But even sillier not to. G&S is still…
God’s messenger
Damian Thompson talks to the great Bach conductor — and strict Calvinist — Masaaki Suzuki
Why are children in Guernsey extolling Islam to their parents?
I have never been to the island of Guernsey. This is a large world and we have a finite amount…
The EU must change
David Cameron’s attempt to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership has served as a powerful reminder of the case for leaving. The…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, spent time in Brussels before a meeting of the European Council to see what…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that Muslim women must learn English, and that those who had entered on…
The rise and fall of Sony
Sony was the Apple of its day and more. Stephen Bayley charts its years of creativity unrivalled in the history of consumerism
Boris Johnson’s diary: Amid the China hype, remember Japan
Frankly I don’t know why the British media made such a big fat fuss last week when I accidentally flattened…
The polyphonous Babel of global music
‘Following custom, when the Siamese conquered the Khmer they carried off much of the population, including most of their musicians,…
What is it about Bill Viola’s films that reduce grown-ups to tears?
What is it about Bill Viola's films that reduce grown-ups to tears? William Cook dries his eyes and talks to the video artist about Zen, loss and nearly drowning
Cheer up: we’re robust enough to withstand a shock from China
Home from the hot Aegean, huddled by the fire as rain ruins the bank holiday weekend, I’m thinking: what gloom…
Diary
Should we have celebrated VJ Day? Hearing the hieratic tones of the Emperor Hirohito on Radio 4 the other day,…
The clock that stopped: the victory of nuclear arms and defeat of nuclear power
‘I visited the black marble obelisk which marks the epicentre of the explosion, and I saw the plain domestic wall-clock…
Do Nikkei and the FT really share the same journalistic values?
It’s nearly 30 years since I worked in Japan, but I still have a few words of the language and…
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…
Eastern reflections
In his introductory remarks to the Afro–Eurasian Eclipse, one of his later suites for jazz orchestra, Duke Ellington remarked —…
Barometer
Watching brief Samsung warned users of its voice-activated televisions that what they said in front of the TV could be…
Who’s afraid of deflation?
Campaigning in Putney in 1978, Mrs Thatcher famously took out a pair of scissors and cut a pound note down…
High life
This is a good time to write about a nation’s resilience in the face of calamity. I am referring to…
Japan: Spring break
Kate Crockett wallows happily in the natural hot baths of Kyushu
Demons of deflation
The new fear haunting Europe
Cultural revolution
We have read about the remarkable opening up of China in recent years: how many people live there and how…
In praise of Japanese Bordeaux
Château Lagrange, a St Julien third growth, has the largest acreage of any Bordeaux classed growth. For much of the…
Magic bullet
Stephen Bayley explains why he has become addicted to Japan’s Shinkansen
