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Melanie McDonagh

Melanie McDonagh is a leaderwriter for the Evening Standard and Spectator contributor. Irish, living in London.

Sorry – the Vikings really were that bad

Melanie McDonagh 10 August 2013 9:00 am

Forget that guff about peaceful farmers with an interest in travel

The Modern Peasant, by JoJo Tulloch - review

Melanie McDonagh 10 August 2013 9:00 am

You know that something’s afoot when Lakeland says so. Lakeland is the kitchenware company which has more of a finger…

Philip Bobbitt on Machiavelli, Obama and David Cameron

Melanie McDonagh 6 July 2013 9:00 am

Few of today’s statesmen, says Philip Bobbitt, deserve comparison with the ‘seriously ethical’ author of The Prince

Dan Brown's latest conspiracy theory - and the powerful people who believe it

Melanie McDonagh 25 May 2013 9:00 am

The novelist is not the first to say that we’re all doomed

Travel: Ireland’s wild west

Melanie McDonagh 23 March 2013 9:00 am

Melanie McDonagh goes in quest of the Burren, with its ancient churches, rugged landscapes and extraordinary flora

Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique at 50

Melanie McDonagh 9 March 2013 9:00 am

Melanie McDonagh on 50 years of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique

Don’t watch The Hobbit

Melanie McDonagh 8 December 2012 9:00 am

The book is perfectly formed – the film can only spoil it

Fit to Party

Melanie McDonagh 1 December 2012 10:41 am

There’s one sure way to avoid a miserable January: get your masochism over with in early December. Are you ready to pretox?

Can you trust a Christian?

Melanie McDonagh 20 October 2012 9:00 am

Secular prejudice is fine, but religious belief is increasingly suspect

Cake Expectations

Melanie McDonagh 22 September 2012 10:40 am

The rebirth of afternoon tea

The vagina fad

Melanie McDonagh 18 August 2012 6:00 am

A puerile modern obsession with the V-word

Paris en famille

Melanie McDonagh 30 June 2012 6:00 am

The French capital is much friendlier if you’re a child, says Melanie McDonagh

The right to squeak

Melanie McDonagh 12 May 2012 3:00 pm

Having a feminine voice remains a real disadvantage

Unsinkable drama

Melanie McDonagh 17 March 2012 4:00 pm

The last hours of the Titanic were a perfect tragedy. No wonder we’re still obsessed

A real-life whodunnit

Melanie McDonagh 14 January 2012 11:00 am

The Saville Report into the events of Bloody Sunday is ten volumes or 5,000 pages long and was five years…

Christmas for the ladies

Melanie McDonagh 17 December 2011 12:00 am

In Ireland, women used to gather to celebrate the Epiphany with cakes and gossip

Cookery Books: Back to classics

Melanie McDonagh 26 November 2011 11:00 am

The truth is, we could probably all get by with three or four cookbooks; half a dozen at most, which…

The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses by Paul Koudounaris

Melanie McDonagh 5 November 2011 11:00 am

In one Capuchin monastery in Sicily, the so-called Palermo Catacombs, locals used to buy a niche where their mummified corpse…

Don’t wait for One Day

Melanie McDonagh 3 September 2011 12:00 am

The perfect soulmate is an illusion that can ruin your life

The secret of self-help

Melanie McDonagh 13 August 2011 12:00 am

Follow one simple tip, and you'll never need to buy an advice book again

What women want

Melanie McDonagh 25 June 2011 12:00 am

The Tories are desperate to regain the female vote – but they have a very patronising idea of how to do it

Vastly entertaining

Melanie McDonagh 28 May 2011 12:00 am

It may not be quite true that the next best thing to eating good food is reading about it, but undeniably food writing has its considerable pleasures.

Bookends: The last laugh

Melanie McDonagh 9 April 2011 6:00 am

In July, the world’s most famous restaurant, elBulli, closes, to reopen in 2014 as a ‘creative centre’. Rough luck on the million-odd people who try for one of 8,000 reservations a year. It’s also a blow for the eponymous young cooks of Lisa Abend’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentices (Simon & Schuster, £18.99), the 45 stagiaires who labour in Ferran Adria’s kitchen for a season in the hope of sharing in the magic. Ferran, you see, is no mere cook. With him, ‘hot turns into cold, sweet into savoury, solid into liquid or air’.

Adultery rewarded

Melanie McDonagh 2 April 2011 12:00 am

To name Camilla as Queen Consort would devalue marriage

Smoke Alarm

Melanie McDonagh 1 April 2011 5:15 pm

The furore over fags

« 1 2 3 4 »

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