George Orwell
Dying buddleias on railway lines are what excite the new nature writer
A parliament of owls. A gaggle of geese. A convocation of eagles. But what is the generic term for the…
Cabbages and kings
The first pastry cook Chaïm Soutine painted came out like a collapsed soufflé. The sitter for ‘The Pastry Cook’ (c.1919)…
Labour must stop feeling repulsed by the idea of Englishness
My party needs to stop being scared of patriotism
Down and Out in Paris and London is a chav safari
Down and Out in Paris and London is a brilliant specimen from a disreputable branch of writing: the chav safari,…
Long may we Brits laugh at our absurd demagogues
In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke warned that ‘pure democracy’ was as dangerous as absolute monarchy. ‘Of…
I became a Conservative thanks to a little winged rabbit called Pookie
His father’s dental cast, writes Graham Greene near the beginning of The Power and the Glory ‘had been [Trench’s] favourite…
Aphorisms and the arts: from Aristotle to Oscar Wilde
The author of this jam-packed treasure trove has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000 and…
Close encounters on the starship Enterprise
For a show with a self-proclaimed ‘five-year mission’, Star Trek hasn’t done badly. Gene Roddenberry’s ‘Wagon train to the stars’…
David Astor: the saintly, tormented man who remade the Observer
Before embarking on this book, Jeremy Lewis was told by his friend Diana Athill that his subject, the newspaper editor…
The heavens are falling
The dystopian novel in which a Ballardian deluge or viral illness transforms planet Earth has become something of a sub-genre,…
Marlene Dietrich, George Orwell and the rebirth of a nation
The purpose of Lara Feigel’s book is to describe the ‘political mission of reconciliation and restoration’ in the devastated cities…
From dressing-gown drudge to Man Booker winner
John Gross’s The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters: English Literary Life since 1800, a standard text for…
Why I’ve finally given up on the left
I cannot be part of a movement run by half-educated fanatics
War, socialist tyranny and the oppression of the handicapped - welcome to the new dance season
If there’s one thing scarcer than hen’s teeth in serious choreography nowadays, it’s a light heart. When was the last…
The Baroque composer who was a world music pioneer
On Private Passions this week the writer Amitav Ghosh gave us a refreshingly different version of what has become a…
Six rules for a perfect pub
Whenever one of those news stories appears about how many pubs have been forced to close in the last year,…
James Runcie’s diary: A Willie’s shock at the SNP
I am writing a play about Dr Johnson and his Dictionary. It will be performed in Scotland later this year.…
What Samsung’s new TVs owe to Jeremy Bentham
Watching brief Samsung warned users of its voice-activated televisions that what they said in front of the TV could be…
Page 3 was harmless. Here’s why I’ll miss it
‘I for one would be sorry to see them go,’ wrote George Orwell. ‘They are a sort of saturnalia, a harmless…
The changing meaning of 'prolific', from Orwell to the Premier League
I read somewhere recently of a Soho artist who was a ‘prolific drinker’. The meaning is clear, but hasn’t the…
Students - bunk off your sex classes and learn on the job
Universities are forcing undergraduates to attend sex education classes. Poor students
Brains with green fingers
‘Life is bristling with thorns,’ Voltaire observed in 1769, ‘and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.’…
James Delingpole: Is the fight against environmentalism the new Cold War?
Gosh it isn’t half irksome when someone who went to the same school as you but is considerably younger than…
