Orientalism

The problem with westerners seeking oriental enlightenment

27 January 2024 9:00 am

Those chasing after blissful satori never seem interested in the people who actually live in Asia. They want to float in higher spheres

Flirting in 15th-century Florence

20 January 2024 9:00 am

In his history of male-male sexual relations, Noel Malcolm describes how a man in Renaissance Italy would seduce a boy in the street by seizing his hat and holding it ransom

Adventures in Greeneland

12 August 2023 9:00 am

In skilfully told stories involving luck and changes of fortune, Osborne suggests that it’s not the hand you’re dealt that matters, but how you play it

The enduring allure of ‘er indoors

19 October 2019 9:00 am

‘She’s only a bird in a gilded cage, a beautiful sight to see. You may think she’s happy and free…

Dark night of the soul

8 July 2017 9:00 am

As bombs fall everywhere in Syria and IS fighters destroy Palmyra, a musicologist in Vienna lies awake all night thinking…

Scottish Opera could have a hit on its hands with this new Mikado

14 May 2016 9:00 am

You have to be quite silly to take Gilbert and Sullivan seriously. But even sillier not to. G&S is still…

Brian Hodgson finds his vocation in Kathmandu

12 December 2015 9:00 am

It started as a ‘shoke’ — the Anglo-Indian slang word for ‘hobby’. Bored and lonely in Kathmandu, the young Assistant…

The wonders of the Muslim world that my children will never get to see

1 August 2015 9:00 am

I celebrated Eid in a sandy bay in Sri Lanka, watching from the warm, shallow sea as gaggles of local…