Liverpool
The orchestra that makes pros go weak at the knees
Stravinsky’s The Firebird begins in darkness, and it might be the softest, deepest darkness in all music. Basses and cellos…
Unesco are idiots
Of all the moronic decisions made by cultural organisations over the past 50 years, probably the most insulting and retrograde…
Are beards a political statement?
Yes, it was right of the police to announce quickly that they did not think terrorism was the motive in…
Before the Blitz: the dynamism of British architecture
Many competing styles flourished in the interwar years, including functionalism, art deco, neoclassicism, seaside moderne, mock-Mayan and Egyptian revivalism
How Liverpool soon outgrew the Beatles
For the bands playing at Eric’s, the celebrated Merseyside punk club of the late 1970s, even to own a Beatles record was considered embarrassing
Good cop, bad cop
Older readers may remember a time when people signalled their cultural superiority with the weird boast that they didn’t watch…
Why aren’t we more horrified by the Liverpool bombing?
Back when the West was still pretending to fight the ‘war on terror’, Martin Amis made an observation about the…
Liverpool explosion: what we know so far
Britain has been subjected to another suspected terror attack, just as the nation fell silent for the annual Remembrance Sunday…
Low life
For early humans there was no distinction between spirit and matter. There was no idea of self; no barrier between…
Why Stonehenge doesn’t have to go the same way as Liverpool
It has not been a good month for the United Kingdom’s internationally important heritage sites. Stonehenge is teetering on the…
The disgraceful decision to remove Liverpool’s heritage status
Unesco has cancelled the ‘World Heritage Status’ of the Necropolis at Memphis and the Giza Pyramid because a Radisson Blu…
How strict will the new Covid restrictions be?
I have a few points to make about the new three tier system to be announced today for restricting our…
Scouse style
Richard Bratby on Britain’s oldest and ballsiest orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which has taken on everyone from gang leaders to Derek Hatton
Hats off to Liverpool
Where were we? Oh yes, Liverpool were running away with the Premier League and a mere three months later have…
If Annette Bening isn’t Oscar-nominated, I’ll eat my hat and also yours
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is plainly wonderful, and stars Annette Bening, who is plainly wonderful, as Gloria Grahame,…
Peter Hitchens: Why I climbed on my soapbox after refusing to sign a university’s ‘free speech’ contract
Where better to be than in Liverpool on a crisp autumn evening, haranguing an open-air meeting of students? I hadn’t…
Diary
It has been an unqualified delight, even if it is mildly absurd: I have been chairing the judges for this…
Diary
Why do we assume all doctors are good? We don’t think there are no bad cooks or bad plumbers. But…
Northern overexposure
Manchester isn’t downtrodden, whatever Andy Burnham says. Quite the opposite, in fact
Paul McCartney
It’s slightly galling, after years of sticking up for Paul McCartney, to read a new biography of the bloke and…
Sweet and sour
Dear, good, kind, sacrificing Little Nell. Here she is kneeling by a wayside pond, bonnet pushed back, shoes and stockings…
A lofty, lusty Laureate
These Collected Poems, published halfway through Carol Ann Duffy’s time as poet laureate, make clear that she is a true…
City life
To gentrify or not to gentrify. That is the question, says Stephen Bayley
Northern exposure
George Osborne on his love affair with Greater Manchester, and his party’s need for ‘a bit of the Heseltine’
