Box of Tricks
100 Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know by John D. Barrow
Outward Bound
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
Beyond Comprehension
The Archbishop of Canterbury, it is said, was very surprised earlier this year by the furious response to his speech about civil and religious law. I am very much surprised that he
BBC Kremlin Service
The Foreign Office must realise that cuts at the BBC Russian Service have turned it into an arm of the Kremlin propaganda machine
Back to the Feelgood Sitcom
The comedy of self-recognition invites us to laugh gently at ourselves, rather than despise others
At My Wit’s End
"The wittiest writer alive" finds it hard to live up to his title
As English as Warm Beer
I could not consent to the introduction into our national life of a device so alien to all our traditions as the referendum,” Clement Attlee told Winston Churchill in May 1945, “which
Annie v. Elvis
When celebrities get involved in politics, they should look to Elvis rather than Annie Lennox In January, Annie Lennox released a statement on the Gaza conflict, saying that as a mother and
Admissions of Innocence
How Labour hates our ancient universities! There they are, acting as though their responsibility were to observe age-old standards and values of higher learning, when in the government’s eyes the proper function
Family Values
Washing your dirty linen in public is all the rage, at the cost of precious family loyalty What price loyalty? Not very much, it seems, judging by the number of betrayals that
Faking a Killing
The world reacted with horror when it saw a 12-year-old boy shot dead by Israeli soldiers. But the footage, it transpires, told a lie
Imaginary Islamist Think-Tanks
Extremists dub themselves 'Directors' of organisations that exist only in name, and the mainstream media swoons