Books
The quiet genius of Posy Simmonds, Hogarth’s heir
‘It’s no use at all,’ says Posy Simmonds in mock despair, holding up her hands. ‘I can’t tell my left…
Why is a book like a sarcophagus?
‘Is it like a packet of fags?’ asked my husband, less annoyingly than usual, but still in some confusion. I…
‘Come on, cancel me’: An interview with Bret Easton Ellis
‘I grew up in LA where we all thought fame was a joke,’ says Bret Easton Ellis. ‘My class was…
The joy of jousting
Emperor Maximilian I liked to say he invented the joust of the exploding shields. When a knight charged and his…
What makes British art British?
There’s no avoiding the Britishness of British art. It hits me every time I walk outside and see dappled trees…
Whitby Abbey is at the heart of Britain’s spiritual and literary history
The 199 steps up to the ruins of Whitby Abbey are a pilgrimage; they always have been. And any good…
Scala Radio is a real threat to Radio 2
It’s not surprising given the way that electronic communication has taken over so much of our daily business, minimising human…
Kingsley Amis on Lolita: It’s not pornographic enough
From ‘She was a child and I was a child’ by Kingsley Amis, 6 November 1959: The only success of…
Would any publisher dare to print Lolita now?
The other day Will Self unburdened himself on the state of fiction with crushing hauteur. ‘What’s now regarded as serious…
The first great English artist – the life and art of Nicholas Hilliard
When Henry VIII died in 1547, he left a religiously divided country to a young iconoclast who erased a large…
‘Lock him in a motel & he’d do something astonishing’: Hockney on the genius of Van Gogh
Being in the south of France obviously gave Vincent an enormous joy, which visibly comes out in the paintings. That’s…
The people have not forgotten me: the exiled Empress of Iran interviewed
Somewhere in the bowels of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is a portrait from a lost world. Its subject…
Intelligent, unfussy, literate – the West End needs more plays like this: Switzerland reviewed
I know nothing about Patricia Highsmith. The acclaimed American author wrote the kind of Sunday-night crime thrillers that put me…
To say this is a ‘once in a generation’ exhibition seems absurdly modest
‘The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians; between these two means of death…
Angela Carter was a master of radio drama
The writer Angela Carter (born in 1940) grew up listening to the wireless, her love of stories, magic and the…
Glenn Close rescues this clumsy new adaptation: The Wife reviewed
The Wife is an adaptation of the Meg Wolitzer novel (2003) and stars Glenn Close. Her performance is better than…
What it was like to be a black lawyer in the deep south in the 60s
To have been a black lawyer in the deep south of America in the early 1960s would have taken a…
The artist who breathes Technicolour life into historic photographs
There is something of The Wizard of Oz about Marina Amaral’s photographs. She whisks us from black-and-white Kansas to shimmering…
A new exhibition gives us the real Tolkien – not his awful legacy
To no one’s surprise, the Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian in Oxford, where J.R.R. spent so much…
Who really wants to read feminist children’s books?
A friend of mine who commissions book reviews has added a sub-category to the list of titles coming up: ‘femtrend’,…
Only Radio 4 would allow Ian McKellan and Joanna Lumley to play Mr and Mrs God
One sphere that podcasts have so far not much penetrated is drama. Audible.co.uk is itching to develop its own brand…
Is PewDiePie the new Harold Bloom?
The most subscribed to channel on YouTube — by far — belongs to a rather strange young Swede named Felix…
Dear Mary: A work colleague has a brain tumour — and his self pity is annoying me
Q. When buying a present for a friend, I would not dream of glugging from the bottle or helping myself…
Viv Albertine of the Slits on anger, honesty and being an arsey feminist
Viv Albertine, by her own admission, hurls stuff at misbehaving audiences. Specifically, when the rage descends, any nearby full cup…