World
New York is a people pleaser’s hell
Oh, New York, New York. So nice they named it twice. It never sleeps. It’s New York or nowhere, they…
Why BDSM is innately conservative
My friend Evie complains that I never want to go out and have fun anymore. “You’ve become a boring old…
Remembering John Gardner
“Art begins in a wound, an imperfection,” said the late novelist John Gardner, one of the last American writers to…
A history of intellect
It has it been widely noted that, as Western culture generally has grown steadily more materialistic in its values and…
Visiting Glashütte, the small town in East Germany that has mastered time
The view from my top floor room at the Steigenberger Hotel de Saxe looked out at the great dome of…
The wellness retreat reborn
Rebecca Illing’s résumé doesn’t read like your typical hotelier’s: circus school graduate, free diver, marine conservation advocate and certified death…
Why the law on assisted dying must change
Esther Rantzen’s decision to join the campaign to legalise assisted dying, in the light of uncertainty about her cancer prognosis,…
A craft beer revolution in Grand Cru Country
If the dozens of cartoonish stereotypes that flood my mind when I think of France — grand Bordeaux estates, snails…
Cooking for busy people
Scrambled eggs. Beans on toast. Canned soup. But Caro Chambers, recipe developer, Substack author and mom of three little boys,…
The perils of Harvard and Claudine Gay
History sometimes rhymes. You can’t expect things to work out the same way every time. But sometimes events are so nearly…
Are Red Sea ship attacks the start of a crisis for the global economy?
Covid provided a revelation of the vulnerabilities of the global supply chain, but now war in Yemen has provided another.…
A true Vienna experience includes the Sacher cake
What Victoria is to a jam sponge, so is Sacher to chocolate cake. It’s a man, a hotel and a…
Bowling Alone reads like a nostalgic look at the good ol’ days
In the Phetasy.com book club, we recently read the famous social science tome, Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam. In it he…
Does falling inflation show that interest rates are too high?
Well that was a surprise. At just 3.9 per cent, down from 4.7 per cent, the latest inflation figure published…
The lawfare against Donald Trump is increasingly farcical
Does kicking a popular candidate off the electoral ballot protect democracy? Or is that in fact deeply anti-democratic? These are…
Is the cost of living crisis over?
This morning’s inflation figures are good news. The fall in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) to 3.9 per cent, from…
Macron has been humiliated by Marine Le Pen
Marine Le Pen celebrated what she called ‘an ideological victory’ on Tuesday evening after Emmanuel Macron’s government finally had its…
Our culture of cheapness and vulgarity
There are many things in short supply these days, but cheapness and vulgarity are not among them. They’re everywhere right…
The left’s strangled language on Israel and Gaza
As a left-wing sympathizer to the Palestinian cause, I cringed when I heard reports that college students around the country,…
Why shouldn’t the British Museum take BP’s cash?
Three cheers for the British Museum, which has just announced a new £50 million sponsorship deal with the oil giant BP.…
Sunak gets tetchy during Rwanda and Israel grilling
If Rishi Sunak still doesn’t recognise the description of himself as ‘tetchy’, then he could do worse than to watch…
The looming Lenin comeback
The year 2024 marks the centenary of Vladimir Lenin’s death. In April of that year, the consummate communist, having blighted…
This transgender schools guidance leaves a lot to be desired
The government has finally published its transgender guidance for schools. Teachers have been waiting a long time. We were promised…
Liz Truss leads backlash to schools trans guidance
The government’s guidance for schools on transgender pupils was finally published this morning – prompting an immediate backlash which demonstrated…
The Ministry of Justice is engaged in historical vandalism
This week, the Ministry of Justice launched a consultation on its plan to digitise its vast archive of wills. The…
