Society

The Edinburgh Festival is finally over, but why was this year’s event so obsessed with dying? Death is the new Black, at least according to the artists at the fringe where our mortality has been eviscerated, diced, disembowelled, deconstructed and fed back in a torrent of death shows to an army of avid theatre goers ever hungry, it seems, for new interpretations of our predictable demise. Death Suits You, When We Died, You are All Going to Die, The Last Show Before We Die, Hello Kitty Must Die, and the Dead Dad Show are just a few of the catchy morbid show titles proudly performed in defiance of the usual

Nearly three months into their counteroffensive, the Ukrainian army has finally found a way to breach the first line of Russian defence. Ukraine has moved through minefields, ‘dragon’s teeth’ defences and swarms of drones. They have retaken the village of Robotyne which lies on the highway to Tokmak, the next objective on the way to Melitopol (one of the main Ukrainian targets for blocking the land corridor to Crimea). Russia is trying to reinforce its defences, while Kyiv is anticipating a much-needed breakthrough.    Russian forces have built some of the most extensive battlefield fortifications seen in Europe since the second world war to defend those borders it has managed to establish. To date,

Remove the preconceptions that stop you seeing clearly, and it is hard to tell the difference between how the arts are treated in the UK versus a dictatorship. In Russia and China, the authoritarian state is the oppressive force. In the West, the state won’t arrest you for breaking taboos, and for that we must be grateful. But perhaps we should refrain from being too pleased with ourselves. Woke – or if you don’t like the word, identitarian – movements rather than authoritarian governments can still force degrading confessions to ideological thought crimes. Friends can still denounce each other, as if we were in America during the McCarthyite witch-hunts of

What’s in a kiss? More perhaps than just a moment of bliss. It was really rather stupid of Luis Rubiales, the president of the Spanish football association, to grip the women’s team captain Jenni Hermoso, as if she herself were the World Cup trophy, and plant a smacker full on her lips in the medal ceremony following the team’s victory over England. But he can hardly have expected the Spanish inquisition that has followed.  Rubiales’ defence is undermined not only be Hermoso’s outright rejection but by his own description of the kiss as ‘spontaneous’ Rubiales’ moment of giddy Latin exuberance/hateful misogyny (depending on your take) has completely overshadowed his country’s triumph in the

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any madder, you find out the following: at the Co-operative bank, if you’re a murderer of women you can keep your account, but if you accurately describe women as adult human females, you can’t. According to news reports, the Co-op bank, which prides itself on being super-ethical, allowed the serial killer Rose West to keep her account. But then it debanked a feminist group on the basis that it is hostile to the rights of transgender people. A new level of lunacy has been reached We don’t know which feminist group it was, or what exactly it says about trans rights. But we

It is safe to say that there is very little chance of the Elgin Marbles turning up for sale on eBay anytime soon. Even those charged with running the British Museum, currently embroiled in a growing scandal over stolen and missing artefacts, would presumably spot them on the site. That is why it is simply laughable for Greek experts to claim the precious sculptures are at risk after the embarrassing disclosure of a series of thefts from the institution. Leading the charge is Despina Koutsoumba, the head of the Association of Greek Archaeologists, who argues the marbles would be far safer off in Greece. Well, she would think that, wouldn’t