Issue: May 2025
Art for art’s sake
A collector who bought for pleasure rather than investment
Is the future bright?
We are in a revolutionary era
Turning a blind eye to the migration problem
Those with power and public influence are reluctant to confront anything but symptoms
Alas, a new podcast just doesn’t work
Why does the podcast exist? Vine and Hitchens never explain its purpose
Signposts of the sacred and mundane
What would it have been like to worship in parish churches in the Middle Ages?
Sympathy for the devil?
Those expecting a recipe for poulet à la Gazza may be disappointed
On the march with the skeleton army
Boisterous boozers rose up against the temperance tyrants of the Sally Army
Don’t cry for Argentina
A reforming president and a vast new oilfield promise a bright future for Buenos Aires
A ravishing Sicilian treat
Swathed in silk and linen, the prince’s family lives in luxury — but how long can this arcadia last?
The misunderstood satirist of sin
In the minds of many, this book threatened to undermine and destabilise the moral order
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
Antisemitism and the Islamic connection
Antisemitic sentiments in Islamic theology cannot be overlooked or obscured
The Boston barbarians
The Boston Symphony acted like a New Orleans nightclub owner with a recalcitrant pole-dancer
Emin: from the bed to the grave
Not so much a fresh start, as an opportunity to finally take her concerns in earnest
Against the scolding mob
MPs have helped to create the puritanism that is now coming for their drinks
The great creative course illusion
How universities mistook access to courses for access to creative life
Parade of defeats
Armenia is a democracy tearing itself apart over who gets to define the soul of a nation
A day out at Unite the Kingdom
Tommy Robinson’s latest demonstration was a peculiarly hammy affair
Fit for a queen
Hannah Betts reassesses the late Queen as a royal style maven
The artist formerly known as Nero
The life and death of Rome’s last Julio-Claudian emperor revealed every Roman fear about the dangers of one-man rule
It is time to cut pensions
The economic burden on younger people is unsustainable
The strange birth of woo-woo
The glitzy LA supermarket chain and the Buddhist food cult behind your wellness smoothie