Englishness vs California dreaming: Meghan and Harry's Archewell Audio reviewed
On Archewell Audio, Harry and Meghan’s new podcast, ‘love wins’, ‘change really is possible’, and ‘the courage and the creativity…
The grumpy genius of Raymond Briggs
No one captures better than Raymond Briggs the ambivalence that many of us feel towards the festive season, says Daisy Dunn
The genius of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue
I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue has just been voted the greatest radio comedy of all time by Radio Times,…
The shocking story of Charles and Mary Lamb: Slightly Foxed podcast reviewed
The Slightly Foxed podcast, like the quarterly and old bookshop of the same name, is almost muskily lovely. It’s the…
Alan Partridge should replace Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour
In the week Jenni Murray left Woman’s Hour, I was listening to Alan Partridge on his new podcast, From the…
The gentle genius of Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Peake’s unsettling illustrations reveal a gentle, kindly man with the soul of a pirate, says Daisy Dunn
The Archers is a masterclass in how not to write a monologue
If you’ve been listening to The Archers lately, you’ll know how tedious monologues can be. The BBC has received so…
Hats (and knickers) off to the hosts: The Naked Podcast reviewed
I spent half an hour this week listening to a woman make a plaster cast of her vulva. Kat Harbourne,…
The best podcasts for all your corona-gardening needs
The American diet was probably at its healthiest in the second world war. Fearing interruption to supply chains, Washington launched…
From Hogarth to Mardi Gras: the best art podcasts
If you study History of Art, people generally assume you’re a nice, conscientious, plummy-voiced girl. Sometimes, people are right. It…
Adapting Wodehouse for the radio is a challenge – but the BBC has succeeded brilliantly
Everyone knows a Lord Emsworth. Mine lives south of the river and wears caterpillars in his hair and wine on…
The author who made a living measuring the legs of lice
Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion, real name Bruce Frederick Cummings, earned his living measuring the legs of lice in the Natural…
I've lost patience with podcasts and their presenters
‘To be recognised and accepted by a peregrine,’ wrote J.A. Baker in 1967, ‘you must wear the same clothes, travel…
Every bit as well observed as Rembrandt – and often funnier: Nicolaes Maes reviewed
Nicolaes Maes (1634–93) relished the simple moments of daily life during the Dutch Golden Age. A woman peeling parsnips over…
Why do writers enjoy walking so much?
Writers like walking. When people ask us why, we say it’s what writers do. ‘Just popping out to buy a…
What really happened at Troy?
Heinrich Schliemann had always hoped he’d find Homer’s Troy. Although he had no archaeological background to speak of, he did…
Did Radio 2 really need to give us four days of the Beatles to celebrate Abbey Road?
This Changeling Self, Radio 4’s lead drama this week, clearly ought to have gone out in August. It’s set —…
The new treasures of Pompeii
One afternoon in AD 79 an unusual cloud appeared above Vesuvius in the Bay of Naples. ‘It was raised high…
Would James Joyce have finished Ulysses without coloured pens?
The Mesopotamians wrote on clay and the ancient Chinese on ox bones and turtle shells. In Egypt, in about 1,800…
If you’re tired of hygge then you’ll like Harald Sohlberg
If you’re tired of hygge then you’ll like Harald Sohlberg. The Norwegian painter eschewed the cosy fireside for the great…
The exceptional romantic cityscapes of Cyril Mann
The little-known painter Cyril Mann (1911-80) saw a lot from his council-flat window. Beyond the parks and trees and red-brick…
![Ivory plaque of a lioness mauling a man, ivory, gold, cornelian, lapis lazuli, Nimrud, 900 BC–700 BC. [© The Trustees of the British Museum]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/lioness_plaque.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
The Assyrians of Ashurbanipal’s time were just as into pillage and destruction as Isis
The Assyrians placed sculptures of winged human-headed bulls (lamassus) at the entrances to their capital at Nineveh, in modern Mosul,…
Tintoretto unmasked
Tintoretto was il Furioso. He was a lightning flash or a thunderbolt, a storm in La Serenissima of Renaissance Italy,…
A visionary and playful heir to Duchamp: Yves Klein at Blenheim Palace
Nothing was so interesting to Yves Klein as the void. In 1960 he leapt into it for a photograph —…
Alpacas – the latest must-have wedding accessory
Of all the window displays in Amsterdam this spring there was just one that stopped me in my tracks. I…
