Face masks diminish the romance of everyday life
Smiling – one of the primary expressions of our common humanity – has been rendered invisible by the ubiquity of face masks
Dilyn the Dog goes to conference
Remember, there’s no difference between Team Rishi and Team Tory
The Critic Books Podcast: Learwife
The first episode of The Critic Books Podcast: in conversation with J. R. Thorp.
Is Covid a Christmas or a disaster movie?
Yippee-nu-xi, Omicronner!
Digging a new scene
Thomas Woodham-Smith discovers the joys of gardenalia
Rule of silence
Good laws can’t be made if we don’t talk about them, and bad laws can’t be repealed in silence
On Solzhenitsyn’s shoulders
The great writer’s intellectual heirs warn that collective rights obscure individual suffering
Truly global view of World War II
Richard Overy has done a signal service with this compellingly written, impressively researched book
Have cake, hate cake
The Sun-Chancellor is having his cake, and hating himself for eating it
Petrol panic 2021
The petrol shortage could have been avoided if petrol stations had raised their prices
Everlasting beauty
Dried flowers are back in vogue, says Hephzibah Anderson
Problems with the universities, number 1241: ‘The Senior Management Group’
Debt-ridden universities are demonstrating consistently poor prioritisation in decision-making