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Friday 5 December 2008

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The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

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The Pope was wrong

Andrew Roberts on two new books on Pius XII

Humph swings

Last Chorus: An Autobiographical Medley, by Humphrey Lyttleton

A rose-tinted view of the bay

The Ancient Shore, by Shirley Hazzard and Francis Steegmuller

Dirty diggers

The Buddha & Dr Fuhrer, by Charles Allen

Saints and sinners

With the publication of their Christmas cookery books, Nigella, Jamie, Delia and Gordon all have a brand image, or a halo, to polish.

Arts

Food for thought

My favourite programme last week was France on a Plate (BBC4, Sunday) in which Dr Andrew Hussey investigated the link between gastronomy and la gloire; French glory and destiny.

Relative values

The Family Reunion
Donmar

Chicken
Hackney Empire

August: Osage County
Lyttelton

Books

Old is the new new

Damien Hirst’s two-day auction of spanking new works at Sotheby’s in September signalled the end of an era.

Play time

Living in an all-male household (husband, two sons, cosseted cat) has tended to colour my perception of technology.

The global force behind Mumbai’s agony is in our midst

Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say that LET — the Army of the Righteous — is a worldwide Islamist organisation which is well-established in Britain. The Mumbai atrocities are further proof that the march of Islamic extremism is the central fact of our time

Stephen Schwartz

‘They treat me more like a devil than a god’

Lloyd Evans finds that Bernard-Henri Lévy is not the ageing French dandy of caricature but a serious intellectual with views on everything from Barack Obama to the Muslim veil

Lloyd Evans

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