The Unabomber never grew up

The Unabomber and I share several connections. Both of us hold PhDs, are of Eastern European descent, and attempted to escape the dismal modern world by fleeing to remote locations in western Montana — he after leaving academia, me just …

MeToo was no match for bunga bunga

Italy’s longest-serving post-war premier already had a vision, two decades ago, of how he wished to be memorialised. The cruise-ship-crooner-turned-property-and-media-mogul changed Italian planning law to permit the construction, in the grounds of his mansion, of a giant marble mausoleum. Decorated …

The truth about acid casualties

Bankruptcy is not the only thing that proceeds gradually, and then suddenly. While Syd Barrett may have appeared fine in an interview in May 1967, his teetering mental state would change drastically by the summer. Locking himself in his bedroom …