It’s often said that the Trump administration is ‘isolationist’. This is not true. In fact, we are now witnessing a dramatic escalation in the militarisation of US foreign policy in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan. This has not been announced but it is happening, and much of it without consultation with Nato or other
Massachusetts All politicians wear masks. Donald Trump’s favourite is that of Maximum Leader. It was on display during this past week. ‘If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will,’ he said at the weekend, ahead of his meeting with Xi Jinping — a throwaway comment that could end up causing mayhem in
On several foreign policy issues, Donald Trump has toned down the campaign rhetoric now that he is in office. His administration still has concerns about the Iran nuclear deal, but it is backing away from the idea of simply ripping it up or unilaterally rewriting it. On the European Union, he is calming down too;
Laikipia, Kenya For weeks the farm has been in the eye of a storm, with violence swirling all around us in clouds of dust kicked up by multitudes of cattle. Last week to the west, tribal invaders burned down Kuki Gallmann’s tourist lodge overlooking the Mukutan Gorge. On Sosian ranch to the south our
Sky Atlantic — available only to Sky customers — has the cunning/infuriating policy of broadcasting the kind of programmes most likely to appeal to people who pride themselves on not being Sky customers. (Basically, the liberal, metropolitan you-know-what.) Now, to a list that includes Veep, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Girls and Last Week Tonight with John
As we waited for curtain-up on Scottish Opera’s new production of Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle a member of staff walked out on stage. Don’t worry, he reassured us, he wasn’t about to announce that a member of the cast was indisposed. Nervous laughter from the auditorium. Still in the same matter-of-fact tone, he carried on, and
Having seen Bob Dylan play live a few years ago, I’m pretty sure he is not the first person I would choose to cover three albums’ worth of American jazz-age standards. The sound which came out of his mouth on that occasion resembled that of a demented, elderly dog. ‘Just Like A Woman’ had a
Films can be poetry — or like poetry; or poetic, at least — but can poetry ever be film? That is our question for today, and I’ll attempt to answer it, although there is absolutely no saying that I’ll be able to do so. Always touch and go, that. A Quiet Passion is Terence Davies’s
A trio of dazzling scores, the soft clack of gemstones on hips and collarbones, a glittering parure of solos, duets and ensembles: George Balanchine’s Jewels returns to the Covent Garden repertoire to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The ballet’s three plotless elements celebrate the various facets of classical dance. ‘Emeralds’, set to snatches of Gabriel Fauré,
Don Juan in Soho rehashes an old Spanish yarn about a sexual glutton ruined by his appetite. Setting the story in modern London puts a strain on today’s play-goer, who tends to regard excessive promiscuity as a disease rather than a glamorous adventure. And the central character, a vulgar aristocrat named DJ who grades everyone
I wonder what Sarah Sands will do to Radio 4’s Today programme? She is the first editor in more than 30 years to come from outside the BBC, having previously run Evgeny Lebedev’s London Evening Standard. One assumes, then, that the BBC feels that the old war horse needs a bit of shaking up, and
Since Article 50 was triggered last week, City traders have been avidly watching the fluctuations of the pound. Analysts at Barclays, Nomura and Citigroup think sterling is undervalued against the euro and the dollar, and due for a rebound, having dived in the market tizzy that followed last June’s referendum and kept its head down
Why don’t tall people get the same sympathy as short people? Everyone feels sorry for minnows, cutting them slack when they talk loudly in meetings or get themselves elected Speaker of the House of Commons. But tall people are seen as life’s victors; the ones you want to be, the ones who get everything their
‘Christ, I would be shot for buying this if people knew,’ says an anonymous fan in the comments below Amazon’s unlikely bestseller Enemy of the State. Which sums up how I feel before meeting the book’s author, Tommy Robinson. What if he turns out to be not nearly as bad as his reputation as ‘Britain’s
An American woman started a website called ‘People I Want to Punch in the Throat’, in which she listed the people she wanted to punch in the throat. It was enormously successful and spawned a book called People I Want to Punch in the Throat, which sold very well. This is the heartening thing about
We never loved each other, Ken Livingstone and I. We first clashed in public more than a decade ago, and have enjoyed castigating each other ever since. But now that he has been suspended from the Labour party for a second year in a row, I come not to bury him but to praise him.
According to archaeologists and all the papers last week, the 11th-century villagers of Wharram Percy, North Yorkshire, used to mutilate their dead, chopping off their heads and breaking their legs to minimise the danger of zombie resurrection. ‘Imagine being afraid,’ I chortled while reading this, ‘that the undead might put you in mortal danger!’ Whereupon
In Competition No. 2991 you were invited to submit ‘The Rime of the Wedding Guest’. There were, naturally, lots of clever nods in the entry to Coleridge’s ballad of sin and atonement, but some were more charitable than others to the gimlet-eyed seadog with verbal diarrhoea. In a hotly contested week, Brian Allgar, Chris
pkkkfffffffrrrffff-ffff! pkkkfffffffrrrffff-fff! Hobble leg, hobble leg, Hobble leg owhmmm! Into the bottle of fluff, rubbed the stuff under! pkkkfffffffrrrffff-ffff! pkkkfffffffrrrffff-fff! This is the voice of Tennyson reading ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, as recorded by Thomas Edison in 1890 and phonetically or farcically transcribed in a novel by Nicholson Baker over a century later.
It is estimated that the world’s insects perform an annual pollination service for all humankind worth $215 billion. In return, every year, we run up a pesticide bill of about $40 billion to exterminate them (this doesn’t include the $10 billion costs in social and environmental damage wrought by the same chemicals). Why is it
