Ebola
Africa’s invisible epidemics
Africa ‘Ah, Africa,’ the French scientist sighed contentedly. This was 1995 and all around us was an Ebola epidemic…
Why have so many of our recent viruses come from bats?
Why are they responsible for so many of our recent viruses?
Sarah Sands: I never wanted to climb the BBC career ladder
After I took the editor’s job at Today on Radio 4 nearly three years ago I had to answer to…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, having continued talks through the night in Brussels, announced that he had achieved a ‘special status’ for…
Portrait of the week
Home Two groups were launched, one in favour of remaining in the European Union and the other in favour of…
How Spain got blamed for the Spanish flu — and where to find Ebola on a map
Plagued by stigma The World Health Organisation told doctors to stop naming diseases after people, places and animals so as…
The fox that killed my chickens depressed me more than 250,000 tsunami deaths
It is hard to know how a tragedy is going to move a person who is not directly affected by…
Spectator letters: Oxfam’s Ebola appeal; what Cumberbatch should have said; and why Prince Charles is right and wrong
In defence of Oxfam Sir: Mary Wakefield rightly praises Médecins sans Frontières but makes many misinformed claims about Oxfam and…
Do I really care about Ebola? Do you? Does Oxfam?
It’s strange how quickly we all forgot about Ebola. Speak for yourself, you might say — and I will. Until…
The man who discovered Ebola
By some quirk of fate, just as news reached the papers that the Scottish nurse who had contracted Ebola while…
Without childhood traumas, how did Alan Bennett ever become a writer?
‘So — take heart,’ said Alan Bennett, sending us out from his play, Cocktail Sticks, on a cheery note. The…
Actually, Bob, they do know it’s Christmas (we checked)
Yeah, Bob, they know The answer to the rhetorical question posed by the Band Aid single, ‘Do they know it’s…
Portrait of the week
Home The last British combat troops turned over Camp Bastion in Helmand to Afghan forces and withdrew from Afghanistan after…
Rochester’s special qualities, and the price of Ebola.com
What’s special about Rochester What is special about Rochester and Strood? — Rochester has the second oldest cathedral and school…
Portrait of the week
Home A hundred firemen could not prevent wooden cooling towers at Didcot B gas-fuelled power station in Oxfordshire from burning…
How Ebola got its name
It should perhaps be called Yambuku fever, since that was the village in Zaire (as it was then, now the…
Portrait of the week
Home Checks began at British airports for passengers who might have come from west Africa with Ebola fever (even though…
Panic about Ebola in Africa – not here
Got Ebola yet? Early symptoms are very difficult to distinguish from either winter flu or, indeed, a particularly bad hangover.…
Here’s how to remain cheerful in the face of such a multitude of scares
I don’t think I can remember a time when there have been so many scares about. They come at us…
There is a way to beat Ebola (and we're already doing it)
There is something depressing about the fact that it has taken a sick Spanish nurse to put Ebola back on…
Portrait of the week
Home Alan Henning, 47, a British volunteer aid worker taken captive in Syria by Islamic State, was murdered, and footage…
Dealing with trolls the Swedish way
How to deal with a troll In Scandinavian mythology, trolls were shady creatures who lived below ground and varied in…
The US military should be winning wars, not fighting Ebola
In the case of America, the answer is now practically everything – except perhaps winning wars
Portrait of the week
Home The Commons, having been specially recalled, passed, by 524 votes to 43, a motion supporting ‘the use of UK…
Portrait of the week: Cameron visits UN HQ, Scotland checks its bruises, and a Swede sells his submarine
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, visited New York for talks at the United Nations; he said Britain supported the…
