Drugs
Avoids the breathless hype of so many podcasts: Finding Mr Fox reviewed
We are all surely familiar with those stories of naive young Brits who travel abroad and are persuaded by a…
The dark truth about Hollywood assistants
Anew stop has been added to the map of Movie Star Homes and Crime Scenes, on sale at LAX airport:…
How ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ plays tricks with the mind
First published in 1798, Coleridge’s masterpiece, about a man obsessed with retelling his story, has obsessed readers ever since, because it never offers up closure
An unlikely comeback: Rare Singles, by Benjamin Myers, reviewed
Dinah, a soul aficionado from Scarborough, persuades the forgotten elderly singer ‘Bucky’ Bronco to be guest of honour at a special concert. But will it all be hugely embarrassing?
Dedicated to debauchery: the life of Thom Gunn
Even the most liberal-minded reader might be surprised by the amount of crack cocaine, LSD, alcohol and casual sex the poet indulged over the course of 50 years
How we became addicted to vaping
For those of us with a poor grasp of time, who can still recall when a night at the pub…
Wales is facing a US-style opioid crisis
In Europe at the end of the Noughties, the problem drug was krokodil. The semi-synthetic, necrosis-causing alternative to heroin was…
London’s dark underbelly: Caledonian Road, by Andrew O’Hagan, reviewed
With its vast cast and twisting plot, O’Hagan’s complex novel feels as busy and noisy as the north London thoroughfare of its title
How Liverpool soon outgrew the Beatles
For the bands playing at Eric’s, the celebrated Merseyside punk club of the late 1970s, even to own a Beatles record was considered embarrassing
The view from the lab
The neuroscientist Camilla Nord places considerable emphasis on scanning technology, but has disappointingly little to suggest in the way of effective new treatments
Going for broke
The founding member of the Small Faces was playing an instrument from the age of six, but was forever haunted by the fear of MS, the inherited disease which eventually killed him
The Teutonic goddess who ‘created’ the Rolling Stones
Of the Stones’ talented wives and girlfriends, Anita Pallenberg contributed most, dictating the band’s style and even how they should remix tracks
My life as a meth addict
The highs and lows of being a meth addict
A shaggy drug story: Industry of Magic & Light, by David Keenan, reviewed
The Scottish writer David Keenan has published five novels in five years: This is Memorial Device (2017), For the Good…
Scots are being sacrificed to a failed drug policy
The Scottish government’s attempts to spin the latest drugs deaths statistics are a grim response to a total failure of…
My brief career as a marijuana farmer
The latest heatwave reminded me of my brief career as a marijuana farmer. This wasn’t in the summer of 1976,…
Bisexuality was the Bloomsbury norm
It’s been a century since the heyday of the Bloomsbury group, and now Nino Strachey, a descendant of one of…
Too close to home: Nonfiction, by Julie Myerson, reviewed
Julie Myerson has, somewhat confusingly, written a novel called Nonfiction. The confusion of course is the point, because this is…
The treatment of mental illness continues to be a scandal
There is much more desperation in this searching and enlightening history than there are remedies. Andrew Scull is a distinguished…
Will the bad luck of the Philippines ever turn?
The Philippines is the odd man out in Asia, a predominantly Catholic country colonised first by Spain, then the United…
Why we drink
‘I like to have a martini,/ Two at the very most./ After three I’m under the table,/ After four I’m…
Tina: the drug devastating the gay community
The ‘chemsex’ drug devastating the gay community
Nuclear war, magic mushrooms and a teenage trip I’ll never forget
Vladimir Putin’s decision on Sunday to put his ‘deterrence forces’ – code for nuclear weapons – in a high state…
