Published in the early months of the Johnson government, ‘The Madness of Crowds’ reads now like a survey of lines of trenches and barbed wire on the eve of the culture war. Its author, Douglas Murray, is conscious of this. He describes the book as performing the same function as…
There's some interesting stuff here. I think we might differ on how big of a problem 'woke-ism' is. I would go as far as saying that the term is so thrown about that it isn't really coherent anymore- if it ever was. …
These first months of 2021 will be remembered as the time when the ‘culture wars’ began in earnest. There were, of course, a smattering of salvos fired in 2020: a concocted scuffle over singing the anthem at the Proms, the skirmish over whether the National Trust should be more open…
It took two bullets, two glasses of poison and the Malaya Nevka River to kill Grigori Rasputin. His killers, the most eminent of whom was Prince Felix Yusupov, were convinced that the man they had murdered was the dark hand behind the Russian throne. They were right. For years, the…
This is a (long) response to an article by Johan Norberg, published by the Spectator. You can find it here: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-covid-trap-will-society-ever-open-up-again
The first years of the 21st century marked the end of history. As the fog of the Cold War rolled back into the collective memory, it seemed to many…
How medieval art can help us make sense of the wealthy’s quest for eternal life
Emissaries of the dead danced with popes, kings and hermits amid the crowds that milled around the tombs at Les Innocents in Paris. …
‘A cordial reception’
What images appear to you? Perhaps this phrase makes you think of murmured conversation, polite nods, canapés and pursed lips.
How about:
‘A hearty welcome’
For me, I hear laughter and the warm crackle of a fire.
Although the object of these sentences- ‘reception’ and ‘welcome’, are…
Michael Thonet was approaching middle age when he presented his system of laminated veneers to the Emperor of Austria-Hungry. Already a successful cabinet maker, Thonet had spent the better part of the 1830’s experimenting with ways to bend wood, thinking that were he to succeed, he would have the means…
