Zooming Windows
The George Formby Society attempts a ukulele world record, online
Antarctic adventure
From the submarine service to the world’s southernmost sub-post office, A S H Smyth interviews Sally Owen, a Falklands-based dentist who also helps to conserve the historic sites of Antarctica
Research and rescue
The Falkland Islands bids farewell to the RSS James Clark Ross and a Marylebone gallery hosts a virtual exhibition of Antarctic photographs
Evensong at the end of the world
ASH Smyth sings choral evensong for Candlemas, in Stanley cathedral
Quarantine in the Falkland Islands – continued
In the final instalment of his Falklands quarantine diary, ASH Smyth gears up for the outside world after two weeks at home
Crashed and Burnsed
ASH Smyth gives a poetically bad speech at the Galle Literary Festival for the Caledonian Society of Sri Lanka
Quarantine in the Falkland Islands
From South Asia to the South Atlantic, in the time of Covid
Seven kinds of people you find in bookshops
Former bookseller A.S.H. Smyth enjoys a bestselling bookshop owner’s taxonomy of bookshop people
His race is run
ASH Smyth remembers Ben Cross, Harold Abrahams, and the impact Chariots of Fire had on his 10-year-old self
None should sleep
A TOSCCA conversation on potential catastrophe in the Caucasus
Revisiting Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square
Hamilton first delivered this to his publishers 80 years ago in March 1941. What does a re-read of it tell us about the time that produced it?
Swim and tonic
The latest buzz from our back-stage gossip
The man who wasn’t Monday
True courage has no regard for personal reputation
Through a glass, darkly
Nick Cohen on the ill-starred but seductive love affair between writers and alcohol
Murray Walker and the end of Golden Age sports commentators
Murray Walker was the last of the great sports commentators who brought us unforgettable sporting moments and catchphrases which delighted a generation
Dominic Hilton’s Buenos Aires diary 4.0
In the fourth instalment of his diary, Dominic Hilton tries to understand Argentina’s ‘redhead curse’
Cheques and balances
John Self says that while writing has always been seen as a vocation, the characters many authors care most about are the ones printed on their royalty statements
Et tu, Brute?
I shouldn’t have read through the list of my accusers, but I did
The questionable innocence of Pontius Pilate
Steve Morris argues that this new book about Pontius Pilate helps us understand the limits of state and law
Beware the power of muscle memory
The ability to train our malleable minds is both a blessing and a curse—as the grand social re-engineering experiment of Covid-19 lockdowns is revealing