Still hunting for a Trump trade? Gold may have further to rise
Anyone hunting for a ‘Trump trade’ at this late stage has probably missed the US election bus. If you bought…
Letters: How to save the NHS
The survey says Sir: David Butterfield’s 21 years of experience of higher education (‘Decline and fall’, 26 October) chimes with…
The dark side of life in Cuba
The first scent of trouble came when Cuba’s government ordered all its non-essential workers home. By packing them off (and…
Why is Elon Musk obsessed with Diablo IV?
Grade: A- I usually try to write about new games, but indulge me in addressing Blizzard’s open-world dungeon crawler Diablo…
A bit of a mess: Channel 4’s Generation Z reviewed
In the second of this week’s two episodes of Generation Z (Sunday and Monday), a teenage girl called Finn wondered…
Nick Cave’s right-hand man Warren Ellis on AI, Gorecki and staying young
In the next few days Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds play Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester and London. There are still…
Hugh Grant is an amazingly convincing villain – who’d have thought it?
Heretic is the latest horror film from writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (A Quite Place) and stars Hugh Grant,…
The joy of Chris Stapleton
Chris Stapleton is a barrel-chested man of 46, who hides his face beneath a beard that must have taken years…
Is Coogan’s Dr Strangelove as good as Sellars’s? Of course not
Stanley Kubrick’s surreal movie Dr Strangelove is a response to the fear of nuclear annihilation which obsessed every citizen in…
A lively and imaginative interpretation of an indestructible Britten opera
Scottish Opera’s new production of Albert Herring updates the action to 1990, and hey – remember 1990? No, not particularly,…
Demanding but exhilarating: Royal Ballet’s Encounters reviewed
After opening its 2024/5 season with a run of Christopher Wheeldon’s candy-coloured, kiddie-friendly Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Royal Ballet…
How a single year in Florence changed art forever
The story goes that one day early in the 16th century Leonardo da Vinci was strolling through Florence with a…
Books of the Year I
Our regular reviewers choose the books they have most enjoyed reading in 2024
From public bar to cocktail bar: books for the discerning drinker
There’s something for all tastes this year, whether poetic meditations on the pub, advice on wines for extended cellaring or recipes for new-wave martinis
Waifs and strays: Gliff, by Ali Smith, reviewed
Two lonely, recalcitrant children, Briar and Rose, find themselves among a bunch of other rag-tag misfits resisting ‘re-education’ by the brutal regime in power
The mystery of Area X: Absolution, by Jeff VanderMeer, reviewed
We are never told the exact location of this highly toxic zone in Florida, but any scientist investigating it has been monstrously affected, either physically or mentally
Truly inspirational: the hospital diary of Hanif Kureishi
‘My world has been smashed...and there is nothing I can do about’, writes Kureishi of the freak accident in 2022 that has left him paralysed. ‘But I will not go under. I will make something of it’
The many passions of Ronald Blythe
Some he kept hidden, such as his affairs with soldiers in the second world war, but his love of nature, literature, naked sunbathing and moonlit bicycling are all well-attested
Out of the depths: Dante’s Purgatorio, by Philip Terry, reviewed
Having toured the infernal campus of the University of Essex, Terry arrives at the coast, to be confronted by a strange artificial mountain which he now must climb
You didn’t mess with them – the doughty matriarchs of the intelligence world
Claire Hubbard-Hall pays tribute to the legions of women who devoted their lives to the British secret service but whose efforts went largely unacknowledged
A geriatric Lord of the Flies: Killing Time, by Alan Bennett, reviewed
Chaos reigns at an old people’s home when Covid strikes, but the more rebellious residents won’t take the situation lying down
