Eurofile

John Kampfner, author of the much discussed Why the Germans Do it Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country and a regular contributor to The New European, has written in the New Statesman that “monolingualism is one of the enduring motifs of British mediocrity”.  It is hard to query the basic accuracy of his observation, but we should probably […]

Peter Trudgill on Antarctica, and its most famous story. Antarctica has been called “the continent without language”. True languages are spoken only by human beings, and although there are many visiting scientists and support workers in Antarctica these days, this is a modern situation: the continent has never had indigenous languages because it has never had […]

Sophia Deboick on a modern music phenomenon and his creative hometown. Maastricht is a name that looms large in the history of the European Union. As the place of the EU’s birth with the 1992 Treaty it is forever associated with grey diplomacy and has been a four-letter word in the mouths of Eurosceptics. But […]

Sophia Deboick on the fascinating story of the star’s often self-destructive obsession with the US, 50 years after the release of the foreboding album which marked its beginning. David Jones was hardly the only baby boomer to adore all things American. The schoolboy was one of millions who had come through austerity Britain to find rock ‘n’ […]

The nation-states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are located in Caucasia, the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, no more than 350 miles across at its narrowest point, which is mostly taken up topographically by the Caucasus mountain range. These three countries are widely, but by no means universally, considered to be […]

An archipelago of 10 islands 350 miles off the coast of Senegal, Cape Verde is a place that was made by slavery. Its islands of jungle, mountains and volcanic landscapes were uninhabited until the Portuguese arrived in 1462, but it then became a key staging post in the transatlantic slave trade, developing a population of […]

SOPHIE DEBOICK on a city where the extreme landscape has inspired its music. And which produced perhaps the most unlucky Eurovision contestant ever. Coming from a city on the edge of a continent 200 miles inside the Arctic Circle makes you tough. It also makes you think differently. The largest Arctic city outside of Russia, […]

PETER TRUDGILL on some obvious, and less obvious, origins of place names. On the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, there is a place called Buffalo Beach. This is something of a surprise, because New Zealand has no indigenous terrestrial mammals, and absolutely zero buffalo. In fact, in order to understand the […]

I must confess that I do not normally read the angling section of my local newspaper, the Eastern Daily Press, but from time to time I do catch sight in its columns of the name wrasse. As many readers will know better than me, this word refers to a particular species of marine fish, some […]

Melburnians have a long history of outspokenness. The 1854 Eureka Rebellion of miners which led to an expansion of the electorate, the 1856 stonemasons’ march on parliament which resulted in the eight-hour day, and even the last stand of Ned Kelly, symbolic of defiance of the colonial authorities, are foundational events of the city’s history. […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a sometimes maligned city, and the intense star who still casts his huge shadow over it Viewed from the other side of the North Sea, Belgium is neither one thing nor the other. Both French and Dutch, it’s sometimes seen as no man’s land between France and the Netherlands and accused of lacking […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the fascinating origins of Fahrenheit and Celsius – and how different things might have been. Many Americans endure a reputation for an apparent lack of regard for the rest of the world. Regardless of whether it is deserved or not, it remains the fact that the USA is the only nation on […]

PETER TRUDGILL on knowing your Baker from your Butcher. The origins of many occupational surnames are really rather obvious. If your family name is Shepherd, this is because one of your male ancestors herded sheep. If his given name was John, this term describing his occupation would have been used as a byname – a subsidiary […]

50 years ago, Black Sabbath released two albums that created a brand new sound. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. It was music with cinematic ambition. First torrential rain, then a tolling bell, thunder, and a dissonant, sinister guitar riff which would have been wholly appropriate as the announcement of the entrance of the devil himself.When Ozzy Osbourne intoned lugubriously “What […]

“Dio mio, you Americans are crazy. Fly six, eight thousand miles. Talk to Magnani. Why? I cannot win Academy Award. Is impossible.” It was the early spring of 1956 and Anna Magnani had just set Hollywood alight with her performance as Serafina Delle Rose in a screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo the […]

It was at the Chichester Festival Theatre just over a year ago that I last saw Dame Diana Rigg. Not on stage, but sitting directly in front of me as her daughter Rachael Stirling starred in a revival of Sir David Hare’s play Plenty. She glowed with maternal pride. The fine actress’s death earlier this […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a Colombian city characterised by great riches, then vast bloodshed, and a culture that has endured through both. Barranquilla was once a byword for success. From the 16th century, the Colombian city’s position at the mouth of the Magdalena River and by the Caribbean Sea made it a crucial trading post, connecting […]

When I left school in 1963 at the age of 19 after 15 years of full-time education, nothing happened. Nothing at all. We just walked out of the school gates, knowing that we would not be coming back anymore, except as visitors. There were no ceremonies, no dressing up, no handing over of pieces of […]

PETER TRUDGILL on three languages that can give the country’s cricketers an edge over their opponents. During the recent Test Match between England and Pakistan at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton, cricket fans may have seen or heard Aatif Nawaz – actor, writer, comedian, and cricket commentator – presenting a very interesting discussion on the […]

TIM WALKER reviews Sleepless: A Musical Romance – and dubs it a ‘great stage comeback’. The old Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan rom-com Sleepless in Seattle tells the story of a little boy with an impossible dream, and that’s something the producers of this big, bold musical adaptation know all about. Michael Rose, Damien Sanders, Encore Productions, […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on the Midlands city that helped launch the careers of many acts from elsewhere, as well as plenty of its own. English pop group Showaddywaddy with their cars outside Filbert Street stadium, home of Leicester City Football Club, Leicester, 11th March 1976. Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images Despite a […]

JASON SOLOMONS reports from the Venice Film Festival on an event that is critical to the industry’s recovery from the pandemic, and details the new release that will lead the fightback. Director Luca Guadagnino Dana Thomas and Roberto Cicutto at the Venice screening of Salvatore Ferragamo: Shoemaker of Dreams. Photo: Andrea Avezz – Credit: Archant […]

TIM WALKER on Radio 4’s censoring of Boris Johnson’s critics, Dominic Cummings’ Whitehall redecoration plans and the possibility that David Cameron might leave Twitter for good. Boris Johnson’s old friend and former Daily Telegraph colleague Sarah Sands passed on the editorship of Today to Owenna Griffiths at the end of last week. Sadly, even in […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the story of Sacajawea. The Louisiana Purchase is the name given to the 1803 deal under which the USA ‘bought’ very large tracts of North American land from France, extending American control over the continent an enormous distance westwards. The area in question covered the whole of modern Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, […]

TIM WALKER on Eileen Atkins and how she likes to disappear into a part as she feels stardom can be an encumbrance. Not long before lockdown, I went to a cheering lunch in Chelsea with Sir Ronald Harwood, the playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter. Men always love the sound of their own voices and we are […]

A photographer who got a picture of the PM in the grounds of Chequers ‘spooked’ him – he could have been a sniper. With stark warnings of civil unrest following a no-deal Brexit, Boris Johnson has ordered that the ring of steel around Chequers, his beloved country retreat in the Buckinghamshire countryside, be reinforced still […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the remarkable way that children learn their native language. The speed, accuracy and apparent ease with which small children learn their native language is a remarkable phenomenon, especially if we consider that they do this without mostly being taught the language by anybody. It is quite true, of course, that there are […]

In recent years the city’s creativity has been stifled and its musical energies diverted into protest, says SOPHIA DEBOICK. Hong Kong is an economic powerhouse, global port, and one of the most densely populated places in the world. Smaller than London, this special administrative region of China on a city scale is almost a country […]

TIM WALKER recalls an interview with English film and stage actor Claire Bloom who became a star after starring opposite Charlie Chaplin. Occasionally stars give performances that are so convincing it’s hard to disentangle them from the people they really are. There are few better examples of this for me than Claire Bloom’s glacially cold […]

Historical attempts to curb Romanian culture have only aided creativity, says SOPHIA DEBOICK. José Ferrer in crisis. Picture: Submitted – Credit: Archant For a short while, Romania looked like it might become a beacon of creative freedom in the communist east. When Ceausescu became general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party in 1965 he adopted […]

PETER TRUDGILL explains the language rules that guide how we banter and who we should do it with. We have heard quite a lot about banter in recent times on the sports pages of newspapers. A footballer may complain that an opponent has said something insulting to them. The opponent’s defence is that what was […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY looks back at the life of Soviet and Russian singer and songwriter, Viktor Tsoi. During an interview in November 2012 Mikhail Gorbachev recalled the moment in 1985 when, on the death of his predecessor Konstantin Chernenko, he became leader of the Soviet Union: ‘The cardiologist telephoned me and said, ‘Mikhail Sergeevich, Konstantin Ustinovich […]