Greta Thunberg has never been a party animal. In a 2021 podcast, she said she had never been in a bar, spending “all my waking hours when I am not in school constantly working and being an activist”. She also …
The African village mining Bitcoin
Bondo is a scattered cluster of villages in a remote region of Malawi near the border with Mozambique. It sits in the foothills of Mount Mulanje, where residents rely on their feet for transport and a few crops to feed …
The Tory shires are turning Green
A quiet revolution is underway in the dales and downs of rural England. What the conservative philosopher Edmund Burke called the “little platoons” — local churches, families, charities, and civic associations — are in open revolt against the party they …
Who really rules Manchester United?
Talk to Manchester United fans about why they don’t like the Glazers and it comes down to one word: love. The club’s American owners do not share the passion of its followers. For them, how their team fares is as …
The propaganda that damned Ukraine
The way the American media has dealt with the Ukraine War brings to mind a remark credited to Mark Twain: “The researches of many commentators have already thrown much darkness on this subject, and it is probable that, if they …
The propaganda that damned Ukraine
The way the American media has dealt with the Ukraine War brings to mind a remark credited to Mark Twain: “The researches of many commentators have already thrown much darkness on this subject, and it is probable that, if they …
Fat positivity is a fantasy
If societal mores are designed for the comfort and prosperity of human beings, they are also necessarily designed to restrict the movement of human bodies. Some of these constraints seem only fair, and even intuitive: don’t step on people’s toes, …
Why our cities should be sacred
At some unknown moment in around 9,500 BC, hunter-gatherers in what is now south-east Turkey, and was then lush grasslands rich with pistachio and almond forests, and abundant with sheep and goats, did something for the first time in human …
The perversion of the English language
What is the most overused word in the English language at present? “Incredible.” Just count how many times it crops up in an evening’s TV viewing. It’s almost never used literally. “Incredible” literally means not to be believed, but when …
The Eurocrats’ secret weapon
On January 1, as the European Union ushered in another year of economic chaos and not-so-distant wars, no one was in the mood to celebrate the euro’s 25th birthday. No one, that is, but the Eurocrats.
As always, the EU’s …
Is Ko Wen-je China’s man in Taiwan?
Theatre and politics have a long history in Taiwan. During the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945), lookouts were posted outside Taiwanese opera performances to warn of approaching police patrols. These raids were part of a Japanisation policy known as kominka, designed …
In defence of showing Nazi art
Slightly bedraggled, a Royal British Legion poppy wreath hangs on the railings outside Museum Arnhem. In the pretty sculpture garden that overlooks the Rhine as it flows into the Netherlands from Germany stands a monument to the soldiers of the …
This year, embrace chaos
Here’s a riddle: Since we live in an uncertain and unpredictable world, and humans have evolved to survive and thrive in it, why do we crave certainty? Wouldn’t we be more successful as a species if our default mode were …
The world should fear 2024
When asked in 2020 to envisage the world after Covid, Michel Houellebecq proclaimed, accurately enough, that “it will be the same, just a bit worse”. As this year slams to a bloody close, it does not take a soothsayer to …
33 concepts to survive the year
As a writer working on a catalogue of humanity’s wisest ideas, I spend my days searching for concepts by which to better understand the world. I find such ideas everywhere and everywhen, from Ancient Greece to Silicon Valley, and periodically …