Barry Humphries
Two essays in excellence
The BBC at its best on Shakespeare, and remembering Barry Humphries.
Humphries and the humourless
Cancel culture is often midges biting giants
Playfulness and tedium
Stravinsky, Petrushka; Debussy, Jeux and Prelude (Decca)
Steering clear of titfer tat
We now are seeing the first flowering of a head-dress renaissance
Good for the sole
April calls for a recipe that combines the incoming and departing treats
Why tech execs don’t give their kids phones
Gen Z’s brains have been “rewired” by the online world —can they be restored to factory settings?
Not everyone has a novel in them
Literature is the only art in which, it seems, every neophyte is convinced they can succeed
Venice’s tortuous tourist tax
How much public money has been wasted on a scheme which will be quietly retired?
Long story short
Movie length seems to have become a way for directors to tell us what serious people they are
Dune and progressive media illiteracy
Leftist moralism obscures thematic depth in its frantic rush to judge
Who are universities for?
Research is important — but serving the needs and desires of students matters more
Realism is not the same as self-pity
There is a limit to how much women can physically protect themselves from men
Would you trust PC Brother?
The use of unreliable facial recognition technology is growing without sufficient scrutiny or accountability
