The Critics

Foreign frivolity

Robert Thicknesse on how the idea that foreign poetry was better than local soon became established dogma

Blurred history

Britpop has a bad reputation for stolid, white-boy basicness now, but it’s not a reputation Parklife deserves

Where there’s a Will…

If plum roles started being handed out on the random basis of “artistic merit”, anarchy would surely reign…

Finn noir

A Bergmanesque miasma of gloom hangs over every episode in this new Scandinavian thriller

Dear and hateful

Christopher Silvester shows how Konchalovsky has one of the strangest careers in world cinema

Elusive quest for impartiality

I would cavil at the curse of the presenter monologue, tending to sway the audience one way or the other, reveals Anne McElvoy

Mystery of the lost Rembrandt

Michael Prodger tracks the story of a lost masterpiece

Not Justin time

Sarah Ditum says that the focus on Timberlake as a bad agent conveniently forgets the machine behind him

Losing the plot

Robert Thicknesse reveals how in searching for meaning, opera adaptations are becoming more obscure

Myth of Igor, the Great Composer

Norman Lebrecht says an affair with Coco Chanel did Stravinsky’s PR, and hers, no harm at all