ambition
Politics as Ripping Yarns: the breathless brio of Boris Johnson’s memoir
Like a cross between Aeneas and Biggles, our intrepid hero travels the world, endures a thousand ordeals and makes himself father of the world’s greatest city
Nothing satisfies Madonna for very long
Her ‘rebel’ life, as told by Mary Gabriel, has been a frenzied churn of friends, lovers, mentors and collaborators, vital to her for a year or two and then discarded
A.N. Wilson has many regrets
‘Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults.’ A.N. Wilson seems, on the surface, to have taken to heart…
The machinations of the Dudleys make Game of Thrones look tame
This is the gripping story of the ever-fluctuating fortunes of three generations of the Dudley dynasty, servants to — and…
Experiences of Eton — and the success it rewards
In the summer of 2019, the journalist Anita Sethi was on a train travelling across northern England when she was…
Beware the female stalker: Dream Sequence, by Adam Foulds, reviewed
Adam Foulds’s fourth novel, Dream Sequence, is an exquisitely concocted, riveting account of artistic ambition and unrequited love verging on…
Who is Sylvia – what is she?
In May 1956, three months after meeting Ted Hughes, one before they will marry, Sylvia Plath writes to her mother…
Charles Moore’s Notes: people who love making new laws like to present them as human rights
Amnesty International and others have placed a large newspaper advertisement telling Michael Gove ‘Don’t Scrap Our Human Rights’. The ad…
When did ambition become a dirty word in Bristol?
A city with a chip on its shoulder
Demosthenes’ lessons in ambition for Boris Johnson
The ancient Greek word for ‘ambition’ was philotimia: ‘love of high esteem in others’ eyes’. Both Boris and Alex Salmond…
