Michael Prodger recounts the tale of Hergé’s drawing for the cover of the Tintin instalment: The Blue Lotus

Gardens start with a pencil and paper says Hephzibah Anderson

Music has lost its unpredictability, its thrilling fear while sport’s passion shines, says Norman Lebrecht

Country music has a frontline place in the culture wars, says Sarah Ditum

As crime dramas take over as the nation’s favourite television genre, Nigel Jones asks why we enjoy watching dramatic reenactments of sadistic murders

Following the collapse of the sixteenth-century sea fort, Brice Stratford says that the disaster was completely avoidable

Natascha Engel delves into Marc Stears’s new book, and asks: is there anything in here that will help us rebuild the Red Wall without losing our big city majorities?

People are terrified of modernity’s great gift: the sudden freedom to make appalling noise, says Robert Thicknesse

It’s a broad generalisation – but the author can only go off his extensive experiences bouncing between the developing and developed worlds

Like natural disasters, adaptations of the Arthurian legend seem to arrive about once a decade and leave devastation in their wake