John Banville Q&A: “I’ve reached the age where I can be a cross old geezer“
The writer talks Nietzsche, Just William, and never taking advice from anyone.
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The Tory sinking ship
There’ll come a day when professional football is played by drones
It would save a fortune on wages, and end the transfer market.
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Scientific medicine is miraculous, but doctors still need a sense of the humours
While humoral medicine lacked truly effective treatments, it did possess a certain wisdom.
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I don’t want much from a film – just cannibals, soft-porn bass and a boa constrictor eating a mongoose
From Cannibal Apocalypse to Cannibal Holocaust, the Italian video nasty was a vivid cultural moment.
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My new home is Crickhollow, and my new friend is a dog called Mattie
She’s worked out that I’ve been having a rotten time lately, and has come to cheer me up.
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What is the miraculous drink that will age without changing?
The most valuable cognacs are stored in a cellar called a Paradis.
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The priests forced to choose between family and God
Heart and Soul: My Father the Priest tells their stories on BBC World Service.
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Motherland’s greatest achievement is perhaps its near universal appeal
Both parents and the happily child-free will enjoy this borderline revolutionary BBC Two comedy.
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The Florida Project is an empathy-provoking series of vignettes on childhood
Director Sean Baker doesn’t always make it easy for us to like these characters, but any moral judgements are reserved…
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Lucia di Lammermoor: even a director with a feminist agenda can’t save her from her fate
This production at the Royal Opera House pushes the show’s reliance on its central character even further.
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Joan Didion on Netflix tells the stories we already know – and some we don’t
In one riveting moment, Didion describes the time she discovered a five-year-old on acid.
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Bob Dylan and his vengeful, conservative God
The surprising thing about Dylan’s evangelical Christian period? It isn’t all bad.
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My Favorite Thing is Monsters: a racing certainty for the best comic of the year
Emil Ferris’s graphic novel is an astonishing sight – woven together with shrewd writing.
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What defines Jewish comedy – and how do you get from Queen Esther to Larry David?
Jeremy Dauber’s Jewish Comedy and Devorah Baum’s The Jewish Joke are two books hoping to answer that question.
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Ali Smith’s Winter: her wise and joyful voice is the perfect antidote to troubled times
While this novel is firmly rooted in reality, it glories in false identities, untrue facts and surreal contradictions.
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Kids These Days and iGen: two competing visions of what makes a millennial
Malcolm Harris and Jean M Twenge explore the most maligned generation of them all.
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A History of the Future: how writers envisioned tomorrow’s world
Peter J Bowler examines how divergent beliefs about the future have shaped literature, science writing and public perceptions.
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“Childcare for the very young feels like abuse”
Many parents have no choice but to outsource their children’s early development to nurseries. But at what cost?
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100 years on, the Balfour Declaration and the Great War
A century ago Britain published the Balfour Declaration, hailed today as a charter document for the state of Israel.…
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From hubris to nemesis: the Conservative Party in crisis
Less than 18 months into her premiership, Theresa May presides over a lethally divided cabinet. Can anything restore her…
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The Saudi game of thrones: Crown Prince Mohammed’s power grab
The 32-year-old is determined to shake up the deeply conservative kingdom.
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The US will rue its betrayal of the Kurds
I know of no other example of a great power abandoning one of its oldest allies for no apparent…
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What is a yimby? Meet the campaigners hoping to ease the housing crisis
The nimby has now met its dialectical opposite.
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Rebecca Solnit and the renewed battle against sexual harassment
At a time when women are refusing to be silenced, the US writer is a powerful voice.
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Commons Confidential: Not resigning is the new loyalty in Theresa May’s circus
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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The road to nowhere: lost lives on the Mexican border
Many Trump voters who live nowhere near America’s southern frontier really do want and expect a fortress wall all…
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Groping and the Paradise Papers are both about men grabbing whatever they want
If men are fundamentally weak, slaves to their baser impulses, why are they in charge?
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Bruce Dickinson’s Diary: Will we all soon have a digital twin?
The Iron Maiden lead singer discusses his new book What Does this Button Do?, edible drones, and flying.
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Could Britain’s weakness be pushing us towards a softer Brexit – or no Brexit at all?
Away from the current scandals, the government is still pursuing its largest negotiation in decades.
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The Paradise Papers raise the question: do you know where your pension is invested?
The mores of international capitalism have wormed their way into all our lives.
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Leader: The Tory ship is sinking
A government of such low repute would be alarming at any time – but Brexit makes it all the…
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