Nicholas Lezard

Aleister Crowley was even more beastly than we’d imagined

His magick and grandiose, self-awarded titles were a lot of nonsense, but his sexual adventures had a very dark side, Phil Baker reveals

If only he’d been merely ridiculous – Aleister Crowley in the early 1920s. [Getty Images]
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  • The City of the Beast: The London of Aleister Crowley

    Phil Baker

    Strange Attractor Press, pp. 342, £17

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Has the C of E got its reparations bill all wrong?

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Reparations have a troubled history, and rightly. The word itself, in its familiar sense, seems to have been a euphemism thought up by lawyers after the first world war. President Woodrow Wilson had promised a peace ‘without indemnities’. So no indemnities: ‘reparations’ instead. It sounded less objectionable. It was further agreed that liability should cover

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