Antwerp: the compact, charming capital of a country that doesn’t quite exist yet
Napoleon didn’t think much of Antwerp. ‘Scarcely a European city at all,’ he scoffed. If only he could see it…
Digesting all the facts — without getting bogged down
Funnily enough, after my editor sent me these three books to read, my guts started playing up. Suddenly, food seemed…
Bigger, better bedbugs bite back with a vengeance
‘Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,’ my mother used to say when she tucked me in at…
Vienna is a crossroads of the world again – but something’s missing
People get the wrong idea about Vienna and I blame Johann Strauss. His plinky-plonky waltzes have become the soundtrack to…
How Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic, Blade Runner, foresaw the way we live today
How Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, made 33 years ago, foresaw the way we live today, by William Cook
The Heckler: how funny really was Spitting Image?
Hold the front page! Spitting Image is back! Well, sort of. A new six-part series, from (some of) the team…
Where Van Gogh learned to paint
William Cook reports from the sooty netherworld that made an artist of Vincent Van Gogh
The tragic tale of the Two Roberts is a story of two artists cut off in their prime
In 1933, two new students met on their first day at Glasgow School of Art. From then on they were…
Cockfighting: the last, hidden link to Bali’s warlike past
William Cook goes in search of an island tradition hidden from tourists
Europeans no longer fear Germany. But do the Germans still fear themselves?
Germans are beginning to recognise that they will not always be able to stay out of military conflicts
German history is uniquely awful: that’s what makes it so engrossing
As I grew up half German in England in the 1970s, my German heritage was confined to the few curios…
Fortune tellers, pound shops and Orville: why I love Blackpool
Fortune tellers, pound shops and Orville: it’s easy to take the piss out of Blackpool, but William Cook loves it
Chasing the shadows of slavery in Barbados
Driving up the west coast, from Bridge-town to Speightstown, you soon see why people around here call this the Platinum…
Tate Modern’s latest show feels like it’s from another planet
‘Some day we shall no longer need pictures: we shall just be happy.’ — Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter, 1966…
The enigma of Werner Herzog
William Cook watches a new box set from the BFI that reveals the full extent of the German director’s genius – and insanity
The loveliness of Lucerne
When Queen Victoria came here for her summer holidays, Lucerne was already a bustling tourist destination. Today it’s just as…
How Napoleon won at Waterloo
If you visit Waterloo today, there’s no question which general comes out on top
Salzburg – more than just a ridiculously pretty place
Salzburg is so ridiculously pretty, it’s sometimes hard to take it seriously. Standing on the ramparts of its knights-in-armour castle,…
Bill Forsyth interview: ‘If we hadn’t made a go of it, my plan was just to disappear.’
Award-winner Bill Forsyth tells William Cook why he was happy to walk away from film-making
Notes on… Eastern Germany
Ever since the Berlin Wall came down, I’ve been pottering around eastern Germany, where my father’s family came from, and…
Today Crimea, tomorrow Estonia?
For eastern Europeans, the Crimean crisis feels very close to home
The Ikon Gallery's greatest hits
In a crowded storeroom at Ikon, Birmingham’s contemporary art gallery, its director Jonathan Watkins is unwrapping the pictures for his…
Is it a good idea to splash money on European cities of culture?
Could splashing public money on city of culture initiatives make good business sense? William Cook reports
The best thing to come out of Davos
William Cook visits the Kirchner Museum in Davos, the Alpine town where the German Expressionist found refuge and inspiration
Interview David Chipperfield: It is better to be fond of architecture than amazed by it
William Cook talks to the architect David Chipperfield, whose work has made him a star in Germany
