Table Talk
Silence of the fans
Nick Cohen says silent sport needs crowds to give it meaning
Little cup of perfection
Lisa Hilton praises a divine lunch in Santiago de Compostela
Wheeling and spieling
Thomas Woodham-Smith breaks the antique shop silence
Public spending and public health
Theodore Dalrymple says the connection between expenditure and result is extremely tenuous
Balm for straitened times
Christopher Pincher offers some bargain whites for our tricky times
Peace in our towns
Fiona Duncan loves the unexpectedly luxurious calm of a city break
Kitchen cabinet
Felipe Fernández-Armesto says MPs should pay their dues in the kitchen
Dickens derailed
Tom Chesshyre recounts Dickens’s troubled history with trains
End of the fiesta?
Christopher North worries that lockdown has caused an extinction-level crisis
Woo-woo wins out
I’ve succeeded in keeping Will in London… for now
Trump versus Biden: Five election night takeaways
What we know – and what we don’t
History wars roll on
In Britain, contentious historical issues receive attention to an unprecedented degree
On nodding terms
Thomas Woodham-Smith says the most vocal customers rarely buy
Condemned to a life sentence
We treat prisoners of war better than care home residents
Dominic Cummings and the illusion of control
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed how woefully mistaken Cummings’ hopes were for lasting civil service reform
Why Aristotle was right about causation
The Michael Dummett vs Antony Flew debate: What comes first, the cause or the effect?
Queering the pitch: should gay roles only be played by gay actors?
Far from progressive, Russell T Davies’ recent remarks on the suitability of straight actors playing ‘gay’ roles are conservative and reactionary
Does history have meaning?
Graham Stewart talks to Professor Jeremy Black about whether the past can be a servant to the present
Learning to love Big Brother
A contemporary political drama uses the double whammy of Covid and Brexit to reanimate older, primeval forces
Friends old and new
Thomas Woodham-Smith doesn’t collect, he simply accumulates stock