Society

Last week, Lionel Shriver wrote a characteristically sharp piece about the narcissism of the ageing Joe Biden, egged on by his wife, in standing again for the presidency of the United States. The Roman poet Lucretius (1st century bc) might well have offered a similar opinion, but he would have presented it as an example of a universal and destructive human failing which he described in his magnificent poem On the Nature of the Universe – the dread of death. Romans, Lucretius claimed, feared the whole idea of dying, because they believed that they had an eternal soul which, after death, would be subject to hideous tortures and punishments if they had been

We have entered a new dark age. I’m not just referring to the situation in Britain since last week. Though if I were, that too would seem irrefutable. I mean in a far broader sense – that the world has entered a new dark age. The first dark age was characterised by a lack of information. For centuries almost nobody – even the most privileged people of the day – had access to any knowledge. The second dark age, by contrast, is characterised by a surfeit of information. Indeed there is so much information around us that nobody has a chance of absorbing even a calculable portion of it. A number

The water bottle is no longer just a water bottle. It is a status symbol. It is an extension of oneself. It is the source of good skin. It can hold 2.2 litres of water and keep it cool for 11 hours. It can be personalised, stylised and bastardised. It is Gen Z’s version of a purse dog, only heavier and less likely to destroy your handbag. Everyone has a reusable water bottle: 79 per cent of Gen Z carry one. Jordan Pickford used one as a cheat sheet in England’s game against Switzerland on Saturday, which is the most functional use of a water bottle I’ve seen in recent