Issue: December 2019
Shed and buried
X.Trapnel on cakes, fakes and stocking fillers
Freedom fighters
The radical East German playwright Heiner Müller and Michael Frayn have a lot in common
Longing for more
Some of the greatest movies ever made were incredibly long. But is a film lasting 13 hours just too much?
Was Plácido a pest?
Domingo is far from the monster that America’s #MeToo movement has made of him
The late Leonardo
The Louvre’s anniversary exhibition has been a fraught exercise from first to last
“Between you and me…”
Our theatre gossip columnist spills the beans on his fellow actors
Studio: Election Artists
Michael Prodger takes a look at the artists who paint politics
High old time
Lisa Hilton finds Jason Atherton’s City eyrie flirty, sexy and a little bit louche
Cry foal
Felipe Fernández-Armesto on food taboos and why the British won’t eat horsemeat
Andean myth buster
Don’t listen to the critics. When it comes to wine the new world produces some real works of art
Most Read
American strategy in Iran is wiser than it seems
President Trump’s intervention will leave the world safer than it was
Saint Nicola
Nicola Sturgeon wants sympathy for her husband’s crimes—but after years spent avoiding awkward questions, her latest reinvention may be the hardest sell yet.
The lonely death of Henry Nowak
We must draw lessons from a horrendous and disgraceful case
Rewatching the English
English identity has become too surreal and discomfiting to define
A failed war on fags
The black market has taken over the tobacco trade Down Under
The Falklands tragedy
British weakness is endangering the Falklands
Greene around the gills
A truly ghastly gastropub
The Real shooting match
Cue the bogus platitudes that leaders make about sport’s ability to heal divisions
Dignified design for the people
A book that asks all the right questions but hasn’t thought through all the answers
The revolt against the public
The establishment cannot accept ordinary citizens having power
Legal curiosities
The pursuit of justice in small or atypical jurisdictions has sometimes led to some unusual legal quandaries
The costs of independence
Northern Ireland offers sobering lessons on the consequences of devolutionary radicalism
Stella Creasy hates questions
For many politicians, being disagreed with is proof that they are right
The problem with prohibiting political dishonesty
It will be used to stifle freedom and not just to curb mistruths
It’s what you Makerfield of it
Andy Burnham may yet stop Reform, but victory would raise almost as many questions for Labour as defeat.
Will we miss Mahmood?
Shabana Mahmood has been a voice of sanity in the Labour Party