Nick Cave defies rock music’s law of gravity. A few weeks ago I went to see Cave and the Bad Seeds headline All Points East in Victoria Park, London and came away thinking it was the best I’d ever seen …
A very British Hajj
A verdigris statue of Queen Victoria, palming an orb, stands watch at the top of Hill Street, Windsor. On the morning of the funeral her hollow metal eyes blankly stare down the road. The sky is a rolling surf grey.…
Can the nation survive Elizabeth?
I was camping by a lake when I heard the news. My son and I were off fishing and hiking in Connemara in the Irish west, hunting down pollock and wrasse and trout, and plunging into bogs on the slopes …
The mythic power of King Charles III
When, in the early years of her reign, Queen Elizabeth II first met Europe’s last true monarch, Charles de Gaulle, and asked for his advice on leadership, the great statesman advised her: “In the place where God has placed you, …
Our Queen’s sacrifice
It seems that it should be a near spiritual ritual of Britishness to live through the end of the reign of one sovereign and the beginning of another. The emotions around the death of a monarch are, for those who …
Who can rule Britain now?
I never imagined I’d feel profound grief at the passing of a public figure.
At those points in my life where someone close to me has died, the hours and days afterward felt heightened, timeless and liminal: as though the …
Why is Edward Enninful editing Vogue?
Why are the models so thin? Why are the clothes so expensive? And what is the point of fashion? These were questions I had to answer pretty much every day for the decade I worked as a fashion journalist, and …
Liz Truss’s zombie politics
At the age of seven, Liz Truss played the role of Margaret Thatcher in her school’s mock general election. It did not end well. “I jumped at the chance and gave a heartfelt speech at the hustings, but ended up …
In conversation with Philip Roth
Perhaps too much of Philip Roth’s energies were devoted to explaining or defending himself. You could not be with Philip for any period of time before he would enlist you in the agenda of “defending” him — against a plethora …
JK Rowling sees through her enemies
Fifteen years ago, on the eve of the release of the final book in the Harry Potter series, an anonymous hacker calling himself Gabriel sent the following to an anonymised email list: “Dear my brothers, Voldemort killed Hermione.”
The sender, …
Why the Tories turned on Rishi
Less than a year ago Rishi Sunak looked inevitable. His training for Number 10 involved standing next to Boris Johnson, spraying money at people, and waiting. The lucky contrast with his feckless boss allowed Sunak to acquire a not entirely …
The Left has mummy issues
A little friend of my daughter’s has just had one of her parents walk out, to start a new life with a new partner. Given that they were a heterosexual couple, and based on your observations about the world, can …
The lab-leak theory isn’t dead
For more than a year after the onset of the pandemic, talking about the possibility that the virus might have been lab-engineered was taboo. Then, as the evidence continued to mount, it suddenly became acceptable to talk about it in …
It’s time for Anglofuturism
Just a few years ago, to be concerned with national resilience was to be seen as some kind of crank at best, and some kind of nativist radical at worst. Even at the height of Covid, to diagnose the fundamental …
How woke is Nietzsche?
“There are no facts,” said Nietzsche, “only interpretations.” Some think the philosopher, who died on this day in 1900, went mad through syphilis; others that he had brain cancer. But whatever the cause of his death, a type of madness …
