Arts and Culture

Before the Britpop steamroller removed it, the charts were filled with subtlety. SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back on a year of complexity Grunge seemed to be taking over the world as 1992 rolled into 1993. As Nirvana released In Utero in September and recorded their MTV Unplugged concert in November, their ascent continued unchecked, while Pearl […]

As recovery from the war continued, a new era of individualism and hedonism was already on the horizon. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports Al Jolson was the biggest star of 1920, a Broadway sensation who was fast emerging as a dominant recording artist. The hit song of the year, Gershwin’s Swanee, only became so after Jolson put […]

​Insecurity over the ‘correct’ use of pronouns has led language in an unusual direction, says PETER TRUDGILL In normal native English, the personal pronouns I, he, she, we, they are only used when they appear as the subject of a verb: I am leaving now; he likes coffee; she would like some; we are coming; […]

The life of ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev reads like a novel. As JASON SOLOMONS reports, every amazing chapter is captured in a new documentary film. Rudolf Nureyev unlikely partnership with Dame Margot Fonteyn is legend. Picture: Kalina Jones – Credit: Archant Rudolf Nureyev wasn’t just Lord of the Dance. He was an icon and a […]

It is home to the world’s tallest people and boasts 200 recorded spellings, but Leeuwarden’s real claim to fame is its artistic outlook. CLAUDIA PRITCHARD reports on a city which has taken the Capital of Culture title, and given it a twist There are only 79 known Ru ceramic objects in the world. One, a […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the unlikely origin of the name of a stretch of water off the Scottish coast The sea between the northern Outer Hebrides and the Scottish mainland is called the Minch, while the more southerly strait between the Outer Hebrides and the Isle of Skye is known as the Little Minch. The word […]

​He lived the archetypal life of a poet – intense, eventful and tragic. Yet Friedrich Hölderlin remains an obscure figure outside Germany. A newly-translated work, outlining a momentous existence, could change all that, says CHARLIE CONNELLY What are the key ingredients that make up the classic poet’s life? Is it the wilful excess and general […]

French pop provided the pioneers, as protest music also took voice. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports Before the Beatles invented the modern teenager in Britain, the Europeans were already ahead of the game. In 1962, France was churning out an iconoclastic, Americanised pop that threatened the grand tradition of chanson française at a time when the country […]

While the US produced a very raunchy scandal, British pop’s great controversy was a little more tame. Peter Andre and Katie Price coupled on I�m A Celebrity… (Photo by David Westing/Getty Images) – Credit: Getty Images Lewdness was in in 2004. As Justin Timberlake tore off part of Janet Jackson’s bustier at the Super Bowl […]

Peter Trudgill on a perfectly good word which may find its days numbered The Dutch word for ‘to buy’ is kopen. The corresponding word in German is kaufen; and the West Frisian equivalent is keapje. All the Scandinavian languages also have a related form: Norwegian kjøpe, Danish købe, Swedish köpa, Icelandic kaupa, and Faroese keypa. […]

This year’s Venice Film Festival delivered hit after hit after hit Elisia Del Genio and Ludovica nasti in My Brilliant Friend. Photo: Eduardo Castaldo – Credit: Archant Often when reporting on a film festival, the temptation is to sift the movies for themes in a strained attempt to intuit what the world’s filmmakers are saying […]

With the Space Race very much on, 1959 reeked of the future. And one band were particularly influential, Sophia Deboick reports. One event on its own secures 1959’s position in musical history. February 3 was ‘the day the music died’, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper were killed instantly when the plane […]

Logic- and despots – might favour other systems, but, as Peter Trudgill explains, traditional units of measurements still endure. Of the approximately 80 countries in the world which drive on the left-hand side of the road, only four are European: Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, and the UK (plus the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands). […]

For a few years at the height of the Sixties, the epicentre of cool was to be found between junctions 16 and 17 of the M1. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports on an unsung cultural landmark World at her feet: Sandie Shaw at the Blue Boar services on the M1. Photo: David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images – Credit: Redferns/Getty […]

A timely novel which neatly skewers the still-pervasive myth of an idyllic English countryside. As the self-mutilatory repercussions of Brexit become ever clearer and we career with increasing velocity towards leaving the European Union without any kind of negotiated safety net, Leavers are being forced to draw in the boundaries of their fantasy land further […]

JASON SOLOMONS watches a new Polish romance in which the Iron Curtain plays a defining role – and hails it an instant classic. Among the great, enduring European love stories we must include Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Abelard and Heloise, Romeo and Juliet, Lancelot and Guinevere, Paolo and Francesca, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr […]

For a world still recovering from the horrors of war, pop culture offered escapism and a glimpse of a brighter future. Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg trials. Picture: National Archives, courtesy of USHMM photo archives – Credit: Archant Theodor Adorno said ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’. Looking at the hits of […]

The English Renaissance took music into new directions and saw that emergence of a tune which still echoes down the ages. Sophia Deboick reports. Elizabeth I had been on the throne for more than 20 years as the 1580s dawned, and was presiding over a peaceful England. But these years were the calm before the […]

A new exhibition seeks to reclaim Lee Miller’s legacy as an artist in her own right, rather than a muse for others. It does so rather well, says CLAUDIA PRITCHARD When Britain’s first International Exhibition of Surrealism opened in London on 1936, the photographer, model and artist Lee Miller was, in true surrealist style, both […]

PETER TRUDGILL divides up the continent according to word different languages use to describe the smelly stuff The distribution of words meaning ‘cheese’ in different European languages has an interesting geographical pattern. These words fall into four rather clearly separate zones. In the northern zone, the North Germanic languages have a word for cheese which […]

Does the modern game make it even more difficult than ever for players to come out? Jason Solomons writes about a timely film that puts a sport on the spot Of the 736 players registered as team members in Russia for the recent World Cup, how many were gay? Statistically, the likelihood is quite a […]

The Doors’ frontman was supposed to go to the French capital to find inspiration, but found only disintegration. Sophia Deboick pieces together his final weeks. For three days after his death in an apartment at Number 17 Rue Beautreillis, Jim Morrison’s body remained at the property. Wrapped in plastic and packed in dry ice, it […]

​With the football match day programme facing an uncertain future, Charlie Connelly suggests how they could return to their glory days. The Manchester United review. Picture: Archant – Credit: Archant Towards the end of last month I could be found rummaging in boxes and tutting a lot. Afflicted by a sudden bout of nostalgia I’d […]

Charlie Connelly on a book that brings a new level of analysis to the divisive issue on which Ireland is about to decide. Amid the intense national debate surrounding Ireland’s imminent referendum on whether to reform the country’s near-total ban on abortion, one book has emerged to help truly humanise the argument and, perhaps, sway […]

Three decades after the death of Kim Philby, perhaps Britain’s most notorious spy, CHARLIE CONNELLY ponders the changing nature of espionage British spy John Cairncross. Photo: UGC. – Credit: UGC Thirty years ago this week a solemn procession made its way slowly through Moscow’s Kuntsevo cemetery on the banks of the Setun river. An open […]

With chilling talk of a new Cold War, CHARLIE CONNELLY remembers one upside from the last one – gripping fiction Salisbury was, on the face of it, an unlikely setting for a chill blast of stale air from the Cold War to blow through the streets but the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter […]

Although overlooked at the Oscars, 120 BPM is, JASON SOLOMONS argues, one of the best films of the year Some things are hard to explain. Quite why extraordinary French drama 120 Battements par minute (120 BPM beats per minute) wasn’t even on the long-list for an Oscar nomination for Foreign Language Film is a question […]

MARIKA TAYLOR studied at Cambridge University under Stephen Hawking. She remembers his inspirational teaching style. Like many students of my generation, Stephen Hawking had already had enormous influence on me long before we ever met. When I was hesitating about my A-level choices, it was his book A Brief History of Time that convinced me […]

The savaging that Milo Yiannopoulos’ awful book received at the hands of its editor provided joy for many. But CHARLIE CONNELLY had a very personal, and pressing, reason not to join in the ridicule Just before the turn of the year there was much merriment on social media concerning the manuscript of Milo Yiannopoulos’s memoir […]

What makes some men act inappropriately? Psychiatry professor PHILIP GRAHAM explores the science behind harassment It is a scandal which started in Hollywood and has spread around the globe, as sexual harassment allegations are made against more individuals, and concerning more institutions. The full repercussions are yet to be fully understood, but this troubling issue […]

In his most celebrated poems, Rupert Brooke gave a classic evocation of England. But, argues CHARLIE CONNELLY, his work has a very European context My copy of Rupert Brooke’s 1914 And Other Poems is a third impression of the first edition that was published in June 1915. The first run had only appeared the previous […]

Facing upheaval in Europe, modern art found a very special refuge in New York. So, says CLAUDIA PRITCHARD, a new blockbuster MoMA exhibition in Paris represents something of a homecoming When the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York was founded in 1929, it had no museum building, and precious little art. But it […]