prostitution
Diced heart and a full-bodied red
Valerio Varesi, the Turin-born crime writer, displays a typically Italian interest (I would say) in conspiracy theory. The Italian term…
One for all
China’s brutal one-child policy was not only inhuman; it will profoundly damage the rest of the world, says Hilary Spurling
How they tried (and failed) to make ‘La Marseillaise’ nicer
Friendly words England football fans sang ‘La Marseillaise’ in a friendly match at Wembley. The anthem has not always been…
Northern lights
In the clammy shadows of Cowgate I was leafleted by a chubby beauty wearing all-leather fetish gear. ‘Hi! Want to…
Sex and squalor in San Francisco
Frog Music begins with a crime against a young mother, committed in a tiny space. Unlike Emma Donoghue’s bestselling novel…
Letters
Why we need a free press Sir: As bereaved parents and (to borrow from some signatories of last week’s advertisement)…
Barometer
The best places to open a brothel The Commons all-party group on prostitution has called for a Scandinavian-style law where…
Garden of earthly delights
It was Hazlitt who said of Hogarth that his pictures ‘breathe a certain close, greasy, tavern air’, and the same…
Divinely decadent
With an eye to the blasphemy underlying some of the loveliest Renaissance painting, Honor Clerk will be choosing her Christmas cards more carefully this year
Je ne regrette rien
Verdi’s La Traviata is the story of a courtesan who is redeemed when she gives up the man she loves…
