Industry
A hit – but please don’t pretend it’s feminist: Disney+’s Rivals reviewed
For most of my adult life, clever, well-read, feminist women have told me how much they love Jilly Cooper. It…
After the Olympics, France has to face its grim reality
The French television personality Laurent Baffie, interviewed by Le Figaro, came up with a nice phrase for the success beyond…
The important business of idle loafing
Alain Corbin describes how rest, once seen as a prelude to eternal life, began to assume a therapeutic quality in the 19th century, as a guard against burnout and a cure for TB
Promethean grandeur: Maurice Broomfield – Industrial Sublime, at the V&A, reviewed
When Maurice Broomfield left school at the age of 15, he took a job at the Rolls-Royce factory, bending copper…
How plastic saved the elephant and tortoise
Plastics — even venerable, historically eloquent plastics — hardly draw the eye. As this show’s insightful accompanying publication (a snip…
Made in Port Talbot
Port Talbot, on the coast of South Wales, is literally overlooked. Most experience the town while flying over it on…
Change and decay
Writing of his grandmother’s cremation, Kushanava Choudhury reflects in The Epic City that, while his expatriate Indian cousins are separated…
The climate summit in Paris will feature a lot of hot air
The delegates who will gather for the star-studded Paris climate summit include celebrities, presidents and perhaps even the Pope. Among…
E-cigarettes are making tobacco obsolete. So why ban them?
The e-cigarette means that tobacco is going the way of the top hat. So what is the medical establishment’s problem with it?
Does Xi Jinping really want reform? If so, he would unravel China
For all its bombast and success, the Chinese Communist party faces a host of looming problems – and a big decision
