Features
It’s got to be perfect
When I order a cup of tea in Costa, the barista says: ‘Perfect!’ I ask for tap water in a…
Poor conduct
Last weekend Daniel Barenboim brought the Staatskapelle Berlin to perform at the BBC Proms for a cycle of Elgar’s symphonies.…
Kids Company faces the music
It was surreal to sit in the Donmar Warehouse and watch Committee, a musical based on the investigation into the…
Madness in the Med
Humanitarian efforts are creating an even greater migrant crisis
Southwold Sailors’ Reading Room
The Southwold Sailors’ Reading Room is a gorgeous bit of Inside. Like any coastal town, Southwold has an awful lot…
Mixed blessings
Japan is the only developed country where people openly espouse two distinct and incompatible religions at the same time —…
The view from Germany
Frankfurt ‘This is not about punishing Great Britain,’ declared Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s interim foreign secretary, on his recent visit to…
The lesson of Liu Xiaobo
Eight years into his 11-year prison term, Liu Xiaobo, China’s only Nobel Peace Prize winner, is dying. He is the…
Game changers
Have you been cheering for the excellent Johanna Konta at Wimbledon? Go, Jo! Or should that be Go, Yo? Johanna…
Free as a jailbird
Food programmes are having a strange effect on me: I watch them and feel nauseated. Masterchef, The Great British Bake…
Letter to my uncle (contd)
Dear Uncle James Thank you for your thought-provoking comments on my last letter (8 July). I accept that personality played…
‘Everyone’s out for Boris’
The Tory leadership contest is starting with an attempted assassination
A junior scandal
On the main allegations of collusion with Russia, there’s still no smoking gun
Cathar country
I once spent three months living in the Languedoc, writing my first novel. The highlight was the few days I…
Media culpa
A thread runs through several of the stories that have defined this turbulent summer: reporters have been shocked by the…
Survival of the sneakiest
Could there be a better metaphor for the corruption that now pervades all top-level sport than the use of motors…
Arms and the man
Meeting men used to be so easy. I don’t mean that in a Grindr sort of way. I just mean…
At death’s door
It is a sunny Saturday afternoon in Covent Garden and we are all learning how to kill ourselves. The venue…
Put out the fires
Few events have appalled London liberals so publicly as the surprise emergence of the ten MPs of the Democratic Unionist…
Down with declinism
Britain is a strong and wealthy nation. Let’s behave like one
Lessons in love and loss
Some of the time, most of the time, it’s tricky to believe in God. There’s just too much that’s sad…
Orchidelirium
The lady’s slipper orchid, Cypripedium calceolus, is both a beautiful and silly–looking plant. It is the strangest of our native…
Letter from a Corbynista
Dear Uncle James, Thank you for your note (‘Letter to a Corbynista’, June 24). Firstly, of course we’re still friends,…
Sharia for feminists
Is Islam inherently misogynistic? That old charge arose again after the Manchester bombing in May, with the suggestion that Salman…
Andy’s ace
Who will you cheer for if Andy Murray meets Roger Federer at Wimbledon? It’s not a straightforward question, at least…
