Introducing the Nelson tax

Dirty money and dirtier politics

Busted.  Yep, that's the word which first sprung to mind when I read the Sunday Times's expose of MPs and their dirty lobbying work.  Hoon, Hewitt, Byers – they're

McEwan the joker

Can Ian McEwan really have written a farce? It would mark an abrubt departure if he had. Atonement is unnervingly traumatic if the narrator is credible, and simply exasperating if

The Pope: Child Abuse is Liberals' Fault

An eyebrow-raising passage from the Pope's letter to the Irish church:

In recent decades, however, the Church in your country has had to confront new and serious challenges

Becoming a Victorian

Winston Churchill was a racist. He said things like ‘I hate people with slit eyes and pig-tails. I don’t like the look of them or the smell of them’. In

A diet of unrelenting mush

We may have been languishing for months in the worst recession for decades, but theatre appears to be booming. West End theatres enjoyed a record £500 million in ticket sales

Rudolf for Dinner

Reindeer is a staple food for the Samí, the indigenous people of Lapland. The meat tastes deliciously, distinctively

It’s time we bank customers started talking to each other in the queue

I’ve been interested in informal banking ever since, frustrated in a long Lloyds bank queue in the West End, I persuaded some American tourists queuing with me to exchange their