Simon Barnes
30 October 2024
We are what we drink
Humanity’s profound physical and spiritual link with water
Read the full article31 July 2024
A plague on plagiarism!
Why do we make so much fuss about ‘copying’ in the arts when almost everything we create is based on something else?
Read the full article07 July 2024
The bumblebee conundrum
Why do some people believe bees shouldn’t be able to fly? For the same reason others believe in Nessie or that climate change is a hoax
Read the full article12 June 2024
What has European football ever done for us?
Continental players brought skill and intelligence to an isolationist British game. Could our politicians learn from that?
Read the full article29 May 2024
Why we love sporting underdogs
The Champions League final explains why sport is so compelling – because it tells and retells the tales that we long to hear
Read the full article05 May 2024
If I could talk to the animals…
Why are we fascinated by talking horses and chatty cats in fiction?
Read the full article21 February 2024
High art and low snobbery
Is a masterpiece diminished simply because lots of people like it? Of course not
Read the full article14 February 2024
A drag on humanity… has smoking been stubbed out?
As Sunak’s ban on new smokers opens up another war within the Conservative Party, is our relationship with tobacco coming to an end?
Read the full article18 October 2023
There’s a gap at the heart of the Tory Party
The felling of the famous sycamore is a metaphor for their witless use of power – and determination to keep their hands on the chainsaw
Read the full article23 August 2023
The pros and the con: how sportswashing convinces us to accept what we really want to believe
Oil is fine. Sport tells us so: whispering to us in our dreams, dropping subtle hints every time we turn on the sports channels
Read the full article02 August 2023
How big money broke Britain
The root of our evils – from water to trains to sport – is a belief that making money is not just good business, but morally right
Read the full article20 April 2023
Is Raab a bully or just a very bad boss?
An inquiry decision is imminent, but here is what the case tells us about the deputy PM and the nature of bullies
Read the full article23 March 2023
Bloody invaders, coming over here, bringing us weeping willows, hares, pheasants and conkers..
When Suella Braverman said Britain was being ‘invaded’, she was right – but not in the way she meant. It’s been happening for centuries
Read the full article22 December 2022
How oil won the World Cup
From the moment Qatar got the World Cup they rejected convention and turned on Fifa and its stated values
Read the full article15 December 2022
Decoding The Waste Land
T. S. Eliot's masterpiece still shocks and disconcerts and bewilders after 100 years
Read the full article20 October 2022
If her own MPs don’t finish off Truss, the environment movement might
The prime minister’s reckless plans continue to radicalise even the least militant organisations
Read the full article11 August 2022
Rooted in history: What ancient trees tell us about time and life
An olive tree older than the Old Testament is a reminder it is hard to get a handle on the real meaning of time
Read the full article09 December 2021
Europe: Where the wild things are
The concept is fashionable yet controversial, exerting a romantic appeal on some and exerting deep atavistic fears in others. But at its essence, rewilding is a simple necessity.
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