Russia
Portrait of the week
Home Two groups were launched, one in favour of remaining in the European Union and the other in favour of…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, told the Conservative party conference in Manchester: ‘We need a national crusade to get…
How Putin outwitted the West
His cynical statecraft in Syria has run rings around Britain and America
Why I left
I cannot be part of a movement run by half-educated fanatics
Humour and horror for children
In the Californian town of San Bernadino, children are going missing; smiling faces grace a gallery of milk cartons. One…
Hurricane Lolita
Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov’s nostalgic memoir, reflects on his life from the age of three to 41, taking us from…
Putin and the polygamists
The Kremlin is tying itself in ideological knots as it tries to make new friends in the Muslim world
Champions of absurdity
Jumping the shark isn’t yet an Olympic sport, but if it were the International Olympic Committee would be a shoo-in…
Reality games
The title of Victor Pelevin’s 2011 novel stands for ‘Special Newsreel/Universal Feature Film’. This product is made by the narrator,…
Watching the next war
Nato’s beefed-up military exercises are impressive – and ominous
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…
The hardest man of all
From the unpromising and desperately unforgiving background that forged his iron will and boundless ambition, Temujin (as Genghis Khan was…
Portrait of the week
Home A Bill to enable a referendum on whether voters wanted Britain to ‘remain’ in the European Union figured in…
Calling all British tourists – Ukraine needs you!
Kiev ‘What the hell’s going to happen to your poor country?’ I ask the man in the flea market not…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, soon got used to the surprise of the Conservatives being returned in the general…
Servants of the super-rich
There is a huge industry catering to London’s foreign plutocracy
The roots of the matter
British people buy £43 million worth of human hair a year. So who’s selling?
Stage fright
The smash hit Matilda, based on a Roald Dahl story, has spawned a copycat effort, The Twits. Charm, sweetness and…
Portrait of the week
Home Launching the Conservative party manifesto, David Cameron, the party leader, told voters he wanted to ‘turn the good news…
Switch over to the Greek debt drama: the final episode must be coming shortly
Bored with the election? Switch over to the Greek debt drama. In this week’s cliffhanger, silver-tongued finance minister Yanis Varoufakis…
Crossing cultures
For an Indian woman to make a dancework about La Bayadère is a promising prospect. This classical ballet of 1877…
James Bond
For fans of the franchise who remain unconvinced by Daniel Craig’s time on her majesty’s secret service, the stories leaking…
Exit, pursued by a bear
In the 1984 US presidential election, Ronald Reagan came up with an effective way of embarrassing his rival Walter Mondale…
The empire-builders
For Nato and the EU as much as for Putin, Ukraine is a question not of virtue but of power and land
Notes from a ceasefire
Ukraine’s war goes on – in some places now, and soon everywhere
