One of the few skills I’ve retained from my teen years in the public school system of mid-Nineties America is the ability to get undressed in front of people without ever actually being naked. It is an art form particular …
The next financial crisis will get ugly
This year’s banking crisis was never going to be 2008 redux — more like 2008, the sequel. And while the immediate crisis initially seemed to pass, as JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in his annual letter to shareholders, the …
Why did Peter Daszak change his mind?
Peter Daszak spent many years hunting down bat viruses with Chinese scientists, helped fund their cutting-edge research in Wuhan, and then vociferously led opposition to any suggestions that the pandemic might have been linked to a laboratory in the city. …
Amsterdam turns on its sex punters
“If the Dutch government wants to groom millions of men every year into treating women like pieces of meat, Amsterdam is the best training ground they could possibly have.”
Anja, runs a support and advocacy service for women wishing to …
Private armies are making a killing
Last week, Russia claimed to have seized control of the city of Bakhmut after an eight-month battle with Ukrainian forces — the longest and bloodiest fight of the war so far. The assault, however, wasn’t led by the Russian Armed …
Ireland will always be divided
Sitting together in the small hours of Good Friday, David Trimble and John Hume slipped into sentimentalism, harking back to holidays spent in Donegal and, in particular, the rugged, rocky peninsular of Inishowen. Inishowen is in the Republic, but is …
The fantasy of Britain’s liberal elite
This week, I witnessed a Twitter row between commentators about whether the UK is governed by an out-of-touch liberal elite. The subsequent discussion was heavily dominated by middle-aged men with solidly middle-class English names like Matt, Dominic, Philip, Andrew and …
The imperialist who understood India
James Mill’s reputation has fallen on hard times. Few will mark the 250th anniversary of the distinguished historian and colonial administrator’s birth by laying bouquets on his grave. Those who have studied him are more likely to show up today …
Ireland is a Freudian dream
My fall from innocence happened at the age of seven. I was sitting with my mother on a Manchester bus when I decided to pipe up with an Irish rebel song. Even as a small child I knew quite a …
The naked persecution of Donald Trump
The legal system, though constituted under the rubric of Justice, can only be an agglomeration of human beings. That is, the foolish, the misguided, the self-interested, the careerist and the idealist — the same admixture found in you and me.…
Post-Trumpism could save America
Just as Elizabeth I would have been disheartened to learn that she had lived during the Age of Shakespeare, I am sure that no living US president, from Jimmy Carter to Joe Biden, wants to be a footnote to Donald …
Adderall is not an identity
It’s 2am here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I’ve just finished writing 7,500 words of corporate marketing copy. I then turn my attention to this piece. But my attention is glitching. So I do something I haven’t done since I took …
Welcome to Britain’s Hungry Twenties
Last spring, Elsie, a 77-year-old widow asked ITV’s Good Morning Britain to solicit any advice that Boris Johnson might have about coping with poverty. It was duly explained to the then-Prime Minister that Elsie only ate one meal a day …
America’s desperate dysfunction
In his short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Ernest Hemingway describes a deaf old man who likes to sit in the terrace of his favourite cafe late into the evening drinking brandy, much to the frustration of a young waiter …
Great Expectations has violated Dickens
If you were choosing a Dickens novel to adapt for the screen, you’d need a really good reason to opt again for Great Expectations. David Lean’s 1946 film, with its spectacular cinematography, is already exquisite, and in 2011, Gillian Anderson …