Unlike so many cricketers since, W G Grace deserves his legend
Two new books reveal how the multifaceted man behind the 19th century’s most famous sporting icon.
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The 18th-century Prime Minister
The end of alone
From the kibbutz to halfway houses, progressive idealists have long championed living communally. Tobias Jones, who lives with a…
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Leader: China and the new mercantilism
Britain’s openness to world markets has direct social and economic costs, as the crisis in Britain’s steel industry shows.
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One of my fondest memories of my mother? Arguing with her on the cancer ward
“Mum,” I said, “they don’t employ me because of what I look like. It’s for what I write.” She…
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Invisible men: why you will never have your coffee served by a middle-aged bloke
You do not see men my age serving people any more – unless it is in the haberdashery department of…
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Shoreditch or soldiers? The Last Kingdom’s bearded denizens are unexpectedly gripping
Uhtred doesn’t know if he fancies shepherd’s pie or gravadlax. For some reason, I’m in thrall.
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Chewy pastels: how Jean-Étienne Liotard transformed a derided medium
When Liotard came to England, Sir Joshua Reynolds sniffed at his pastels. A new Royal Academy exhibition shows just how…
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“Field”: a new poem by Fiona Sampson
“And through its stems the creatures/track their errands”
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The Tories’ embrace of China has created a new divide in British politics
In future years, we will speak of Sinophiles and Sinophobes as we do now of Europhiles and Europhobes.
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Commons confidential: Ashcroft, absent
Man of mystery Michael Ashcroft’s dramatic announcement that he’d cheated death was worthy of James Bond’s nemesis Blofeld.
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From teeth to outer space
This is what human beings do. We wander over landscapes, whether terrestrial, cosmic or conceptual, looking for something different,…
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Over in No 11, the Chancellor continues to slim down – with the help of those little macaroons
Who knows, if things keep on this way, Britain may well become the sort of country where the outcome of…
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How to complain in a restaurant – even if you’re British
It’s a national handicap: a survey a couple of years ago claimed that 38 per cent of us would never…
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Urban sprawl: the supersized City on Fire from Garth Risk Hallberg
City on Fire is not bad, but it also is not great – and it might have been if it had…
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Piercing the “silos” in government is challenging – but necessary
The Silo Effect: Why Putting Everything in Its Place Isn’t Such a Bright Idea by Gillian Tett gives an insight into…
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Thinking by post: Isaiah Berlin’s letters reveal how his ideas still hold relevance
One of the great liberal thinkers of the post-war period, Affirming: Letters 1975-97 makes clear the continuing relevance of Berlin’s thought.
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The Silk Roads rise again
The ancient network across central Asia shaped trade and culture for centuries. Now, as its economy slows, China is…
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The Returning Officer: Faversham
He noted that, after the Munich beer hall putsch, Hitler had been jailed for six months and “thereafter fad[ed]…
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The patient in the spider’s web
In Sweden, Josefsson says, the idea that people with repressed memories of abuse could be helped was “an idea…
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The neo-Georgian Prime Minister
By the time he stands down, David Cameron’s Britain will be neo-Georgian – a country that is, in effect, governed by a coterie…
By The new communes: Why I live with a dozen other people
From the kibbutz to halfway houses, progressive idealists have long championed communal living. Tobias Jones, who lives with a…
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Sporting chaos: the history – and future – of cricket in Pakistan
Wounded Tiger: a History of Cricket in Pakistan and The Unquiet Ones: a History of Pakistan Cricket trace the challenges…
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Remember, Xi Jinping is gambling too
For all the hype, the Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit was merely the latest in a series of attempts to get the…
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Reading the Pussy Riot act
Nadya Tolokonnikova, of female punk protest collective Pussy Riot, on the danger of UK conservatism, living in Moscow, and…
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George Osborne’s fear principle, the perils of the eleven-plus, and why technology is killing sport
Even if grammar schools could eliminate social bias from their recruitment – so that each social class was represented…
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The Black Panthers documentary irons out the wrinkles of history
Stanley Nelson’s new film doesn’t shake our suspicion that the stories being told have calcified into legend. Plus: Fresh Dressed.
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Awards are a serious business – as my garden gnome reminds me
I still have it, in a box in a cupboard at home – a six-inch garden gnome holding a…
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As a fellow expatriate, I recognise Bill Bryson’s grumpy paean to England
The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island recreates the jouney of Bryson’s 20-year-old bestseller.
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Women can’t have it all – because the game is rigged
Work-life balance is a myth. It’s time for women to stop blaming themselves and start demanding change.
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Pig-gate goes global, a nation’s guilt over Volkswagen, and standing in for a billionaire
And so to the Frankfurt Book Fair.
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All hail our bespectacled and toothsome new footie messiah
Klopp at the Kop.
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How to tape an opera: recording Orphée et Eurydice
Capturing live opera demands more than a series of mikes attached to the lapels of singers and someone pressing…
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How the home nations qualified
Northern Ireland and Wales will make their mark in France next summer.
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Conscientious objection isn’t a legitimate posture for Britain in the face of Isis ferocity
After Iraq and Afghanistan, Britain has re-entered a period of unresolved purpose.
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William Boyd: Why John le Carré is more than a spy novelist
What Joseph Conrad started, John le Carré enshrined and made modern.
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