In the 18th century, when William Hogarth wished to highlight Britain’s political and cultural superiority to pre-revolutionary France in immediately appreciable terms, he did so through the medium of food, distinguishing between the Roast Beef of Olde England, and the …
The French love to hate Brexit
Now that Boris Johnson is back to what he does best — writing and being usefully jovial in countries where he can’t run for PM — the Franco-British relationship is back on an even keel. Mutual respect has been restored …
Japanese pacifism is dead
Japan is on manoeuvres. The country for so long tethered — or protected, according to your point of view — by the “pacifist” constitution imposed upon it by the occupying Americans after the Second World War may be about to …
Steroids won’t cure toxic masculinity
A spectre is haunting the gyms of the West. If the bodies on display there look better than they did in the Nineties or Noughties, the reasons go far beyond our expanded knowledge about training and nutrition. It’s thanks to …
Welcome to human centipede culture
Is it really the end times, when anthropomorphic chocolate gets less “sexy”? American TV host Tucker Carlson’s campaign against the supposedly woke redesign of the M&M “spokescandies” would suggest it is: “M&Ms will not be satisfied until every last character …
Brexit has galvanised Welsh independence
These days, it is tempting for those of us who voted Remain to be a bit smug about “Bregret”, taking it as evidence that we were right all along. But such smugness was partly what caused Brexit in the first …
The bourgeois war on French wine
Jean-François has two hectares of vines in our valley in South-West France: his family have been making wine here on this hard limestone soil for more than half a century. And yet, he would like nothing more than to grub …
The spectre of terror returns to Scandinavia
It wasn’t the first time Rasmus Paludan had set fire to the Quran. The leader of “Hard Line”, the far-Right Danish party, he was temporarily banned from entering Sweden in 2020 because he was planning to commit his habitual stunt …
The Chechens fighting for Ukraine
“I am here in Ukraine fighting because first the Russians came to my motherland, Chechnya. Now they want to do here what they did to us.” Kazbek has just picked me up from Dnipro station to take me to his …
Labour’s lost love for Leave
Bregrets? I don’t have many. I still believe leaving the European Union was the right decision, however difficult and imperfect the process has thus far been. This belief, admittedly, puts me at odds with a growing majority of the British …
Inside the Catholic civil war
In the early hours of January 2, the fully robed body of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was transferred from the little monastery in the Vatican where he had died on the last day of 2022 to St Peter’s Basilica. There …
The books that made me
“Where do you get your ideas from?” In the days when I wrote for children, I went into schools to talk to them, and this was a stock question. In replying, I used initially to say, “well, quite a lot …
Boston and the tragedy of Brexitland
The disco started at 8pm. Pints were poured, game soup was served and, as 11pm drew near, the music stopped so the landlord could play Land of Hope and Glory. A few people started to cry. It was January 31, …
Gandhi hasn’t aged well
Gandhi, poor fellow, had his ashes stolen on the 150th anniversary of his birth. “Traitor”, scrawled the Hindu supremacist malcontents on a life-size cut-out of the Mahatma at the mausoleum. That was a couple of years ago, but it’s a …
The truth about Germany’s levelling up
Whenever Britain starts talking about decentralisation, Germany is reliably trotted out as a shining example of how to do it right. In 2004, for instance, the Guardian’s Matthew Tempest called Germany “perhaps the most advanced example of decentralised government”. And …