Bad sports, from the ancient Greeks to the present
Sports history, writes Wray Vamplew, is sometimes ‘sentimental, reactionary and built on the implicit assumption that the sporting past was…
Levitating basketball players: investigating the psychic in sport
Years ago, a friend persuaded me that a reviewer should almost never give a book a bad review. Most books,…
Have we reached the limits of computing power — and might that be a good thing?
Arguably, the statue in Trafalgar Square should not be of Nelson but of Henry Maudslay. He had started out as…
Hitler’s charm offensive at the Berlin Olympics was a sinister cover for his main offensive
The British diplomat Robert Vansittart had been warning against Nazism for years, so it was a surprise when he and…
George Blake, the spy who stayed out in the cold
I suspect George Blake, the MI6 officer turned KGB double agent, would enjoy toddling over to the Hampstead Theatre to…
Always the Superbrat
John McEnroe’s father calls. In fact, he calls McEnroe’s manager’s phone, presumably because dad doesn’t have a direct line to…
Lessons and games
‘Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend. Sorry to tell you that, mate,’ the Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios remarked to his opponent…
Frontier territory
In Ali’s Café, just inside Turkey on the Bulgarian border, Iraqi and Syrian refugees spend their days drinking tea. Now…
Frontier territory
In Ali’s Café, just inside Turkey on the Bulgarian border, Iraqi and Syrian refugees spend their days drinking tea. Now…
Knowing the score
When I come home from work and stick my key in the door, there is a pitter-patter of tiny feet…
