Culture
A little world of death
Christopher North says the decline of bull fighting is greatly exaggerated
When the hype becomes the story
As Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light is released this week, Alexander Larman examines the over-excitement of high-profile releases
Unleash this heavenly voice
The role of music in Jewish worship has acquired a sudden topicality with the involvement of two major record labels
Less austerity, more pizazz
Grand opera was long thought quite dead but is suddenly rearing its shaggy head again
Calculated absurdity
I want to listen to music that sounds like the dumb hopefulness of being young that I once couldn’t wait to rid myself of, says Sarah Ditum
Insight of a prolix pluralist
Christopher Bray reviews The Philosophy of Isaiah Berlin by Johnny Lyons
The real Amis?
X.Trapnel on the book world’s latest guessing game
Adventures in La-La Land
Simon Callow reviews A Fate Worse than Hollywood by David Ambrose
An American icon is born again
Kanye West was mocked for rediscovering faith, but he has genuine concerns about the modern world he helped fashion
Brief encounters and romps in the park
George Orwell pursued women with enthusiasm and varying degrees of success
Most Read
The martyrdom of Young Bob
On ebbing power of the political influencer
Why has Keir Starmer been so unpopular?
He was the perfect embodiment of a failing system
Grooming gangs and the truth
We should not give ammunition to deniers of the grooming gangs scandal
Babies need women
Leaving children with only men who are not their parents is foolish and dangerous
Can Russell T Davies write “terfs”?
In Tip Toe, Russell T Davies is more nuanced than one might expect — much to the dismay of gender ideologues
AI podcasts give me the creeps
The more we outsource to AI, the more forgettable our cultural output is going to be
The soul of Putin
Twenty-five years after George W. Bush first looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes, the Russian president has changed less than America would like to believe
A second Northern Ireland?
How the SNP squandered a major opportunity for independence
UK defence readiness is indefensible
Silence is no longer an option — Britain’s Chief of the Defence Staff must resign
Peeves and a weekend in Worcester
Thoroughly entertaining, darkly funny and humanely nasty
Europe should defend itself
European states should invest more in their own defence, and the US should let them
Quinlan Terry
He kept the flame of classicism alive at a time when it burnt very low
The name game
Nominative determinism is a rich seam to be mined in sport
Ban their benefits and deport them
Our interview with Zia Yusuf
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
The green myth
Tom, Chris and Graham explore our April edition