iapps
Working men’s clubs
Where better to explore the history of the city than at its very heart? Guildhall Art Gallery, nestled between St Paul’s Cathedral and the Bank of England, is currently home… Read more
John Bull versus Hiawatha
Written soon after Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida is by a long chalk Shakespeare’s most unpleasant play. With a pox-ridden Pandarus and the filthy-minded nihilist Thersites as our guides to one… Read more
Conversation pieces
Anyone interested in art holidaying in the Lake District this summer — or indeed taking a short break in the Lakes — is in for a treat. The Lakeland Arts… Read more
Crime and punishment
Just a snippet on an edition of Today last spring taken from the programme that had just won an esteemed Sony Gold radio award was enough to create an impact.… Read more
Making Russia great
Catherine the Great was born neither a Catherine nor with any prospects of greatness. As Sophie Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst she was a minor German princess with modest expectations, but… Read more
The accidental director
She’s certainly a class act. But how did she manage it? Nina Raine, the 36-year-old writer-director, has established a formidable position in the British theatre. Her first play, Rabbit, opened… Read more
Sweet Tooth, by Ian McEwan
‘I’m trying to help you, Serena. You’re not listening. Let me put it another way. In this work the line between what people imagine and what’s actually the case can… Read more
Alexander Fiske-Harrison enjoys a 'story slam' at the Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Fringe is a place of youthful hopes, naive dreams and occasional flashes of genuine inspiration. Usually these turn out to be very much flashes in the pan. But… Read more
Caspar David Friedrich, by Johannes Grave
In October 1810, the poet and dramatist Heinrich von Kleist substantially rewrote a review submitted to a publication he edited, the Berliner Abendblätter. Indeed, as few editors would dare —… Read more
The Roxburghe Club, by Nicolas Barker
Book-collecting fraternities are far from uncommon, but none of them is the equal of their British progenitor, the Roxburghe Club, either in age or exclusivity. This June the members celebrated… Read more
The Criminal Conversation of Mrs Norton, by Diane Atkinson
Caroline Norton seems an unlikely pioneer of women’s rights. Born in 1808, the granddaughter of the playwright Sheridan, she was a black-eyed beauty, a sharp-tongued socialite with a gift for… Read more
Short Walks from Bogota, by Tom Feiling
Ten years ago a cartoon appeared in the Independent showing the New World Order — Bush and Blair peering at a distorted global map with only one entry for South… Read more
Philida, by André Brink
The location of Philida is a Cape farm which used to be named Zandvliet and is now the celebrated vineyard Solms Delta, owned jointly by Richard Astor and the eminent… Read more
The Heart Broke In, by James Meek
This is a big juicy slab of a book, as thrilling and nourishing as a Victorian three-parter. It resembles its forebears thematically, too. It asks a straightforward question: how does… Read more
Are You My Mother, by Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel’s first book, Fun Home, enjoyed great acclaim: a memoir presented in comic-strip form, it described her father’s suicide and hidden homosexuality, her childhood visits to the family funeral… Read more
How a nice little rabbit can win the political rat race
‘Nice people, with nice habits/ they keep rabbits/ but got no money at all,’ sang the popular duo Flanagan and Allen in my father’s day. I can still remember Dad… Read more
Why do all the fattest people live on islands
Here’s a mystery which has been keeping me awake at night recently. Why do people who live on islands, and even more so very small islands, tend to be grotesquely… Read more
I’ve left London. How will I ever work again
They say that moving house is the third most traumatic thing after death and divorce and they’re right about that, I reckon. For the past few weeks and months I’ve… Read more
Branson always puts up a fight, but his days as a railwayman are surely over
In my list of things to do before I die, going up in a hot-air balloon with Sir Richard Branson ranks pretty low. But still I admire his fighting spirit:… Read more
Latest blogs
- IMF verdict on the UK economy: the good, the bad, and the ugly Isabel Hardman
- The West wants chunks of Apple Steerpike
- Michael Sandel interview: the marketization of everything is undermining democracy JP O'Malley
- Nick Clegg: I’m the grown-up in this Coalition Isabel Hardman
- Same Sex Marriage Bill: how MPs voted The Spectator
- Gay marriage easily passes third reading vote in the Commons James Forsyth
- Labour claims credit for gay marriage bill Isabel Hardman
