Society

There is a modern superstition that for every terrible experience suffered there is an equal and opposite psychological technique that, like an antibiotic in a case of infection, can overcome or dissolve away the distress it caused or continues to cause. This superstition is not only false and shallow but demeaning and even insulting. It denies the depths of suffering that the most terrible events can cause, as well as the heroism and fortitude that people can display in overcoming that suffering. Fortitude can even be sometimes dismissed as ‘repression’. Not everyone, of course, is heroic or displays great fortitude. People can undoubtedly go to pieces under the effect of

Just in case there’s an apocalypse, the super-rich are buying bunkers. Big bunkers. Bunkers with swimming pools, indoor gardens, cinemas, and, in the case of Peter Thiel’s proposed New Zealand hideout, a meditation room — a vital amenity in the advent of a nuclear war. Ever since the invasion of Ukraine, with Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia, paranoia has been booming. One of the biggest names in the bunker building business, Rising S — run from an anonymous-looking, corrugated iron factory in Murchison, Texas, just across the road from a campsite called ‘Stay A While’ — flogs as many as five units a day, at between $70,000

What does it mean to be an A-list Hollywood power couple? Celebrity, yes, but also respect. Look at George and Amal Clooney, a high-powered heartthrob and his equally high-powered human-rights-lawyer wife. Or look at Beyoncé and Jay-Z, hip-hop royalty and dedicated philanthropists. You and your partner can buy a mansion in the right zip code, hang out with the right people and say the right things at the right charity events, but that doesn’t make you a Hollywood power couple. Modern-day stardom is about more than name recognition. It takes charisma, dedication and charm. For all their striving, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle just don’t have it. Britain has realised

A wave of protest is sweeping across Iran. Sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who allegedly contravened oppressive and arbitrary laws on veils, demonstrators are taking to the streets in towns and cities across the country. Ever since Ebrahim Raisi became president last summer in a widely derided Potemkin election, a crackdown on those who refuse to wear the veil has been gathering pace, with women manhandled and harassed by Iran’s notorious ‘morality’ police. Raisi regards veiling as the frontline in a continuing cultural war against western moral corruption, which he clearly feels Iran is losing. But now the crackdown on the veil has

The saddest thing I saw this week was a dating advert written by a woman – let’s call her Jane – looking for a man to start a family with. There was nothing sad about Jane per se: she’s attractive and accomplished in the usual alarming millennial way. Not only does she have a well-paid job in a tech firm, but she climbs, plays the cello, writes plays and is a near-professional baker. Because young people these days don’t drink until they pass out, they have time for hobbies. Jane is also polyamorous, she mentioned in the ad, just in passing. She is in a committed romantic relationship with three

‘We got a gusher!’ exclaimed my husband in his idea of the accent of a Texan oil prospector. Normally, I’m not ashamed of his deranged behaviour, but now it seemed wrong. For we were watching the hypnotic livestream from Westminster Hall of people paying their respects at Queen Elizabeth’s coffin. There was many a tear in the eye, but the convention was not to blub openly. Every now and then, a loyal subject shed tears freely and my husband would croak out his cruel cry. Almost as annoying as his private discourtesy were self-deprecatory remarks by the mourning public that they were welling up. It is as if cry and