A century ago, Britain had reason to despair. A generation had been lost to war, influenza was killing those who survived and revolution was sweeping across Europe. A strange new movement called the Blackshirts was marching on Rome just as Russia’s civil war was ending in Soviet victory. Yet Britons were out having fun. The
In July, Victoria, Lady Starmer was photographed at Royal Ascot, celebrating with friends after backing the winner of the Princess Margaret Stakes. Lady Starmer, whose grandmother lived near Doncaster racecourse, is a keen follower of flat racing, a passion she apparently shares with her husband. In 2024, the Prime Minister flew home from Washington D.C.
In 1980, two American academics made a bet. Julian Simon, professor of economics at the University of Illinois, predicted that the prices of chromium, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten would fall over the coming decade. Paul Ehrlich, professor of population studies at Stanford University, predicted that prices would rise. What Simon and Ehrlich were really
To walk out of a public performance before the end – be it the theatre, a concert or a lecture – is not the done thing. It’s considered an antisocial act that disrupts the performance and thus other people’s pleasure. To walk out provokes tuts of disapproval and scowls of indignation. And yet while it’s
In Citizens, his account of the French Revolution, Simon Schama wrote how the Jacobins recruited children into ‘relentless displays of public virtues’. These youth affiliates, the ‘Young Friends of the Constitution’, encouraged children to attend sessions at the group’s headquarters in Paris, while ‘throughout France, “Battalions of Hope”, consisting of boys between the ages of
I have recently begun training for holy orders in the Church of England. I know, they’re getting desperate. My motivation for wanting to be a priest is selfish. I want more joy in my life. You might feel that joy is to be found in extreme sports, or pop concerts, or snorting coke from the
There’s a myth that lots of us fall for/ ‘Kids’ books are so easy to write’/ And you can see why we might think so/ As so many of them are shite. Little poem by me there. As the dad of a six-year-old and a three-year-old, I have spent perhaps 100 hours reading some wonderful
I didn’t force any hyacinths this Christmas. Most years I plant a dozen bulbs at the end of September and hide them in a dark corner so they’re ready for Christmas Day – they never are, of course, but they usually arrive shortly after the Wise Men on Epiphany. But last September I took out
Apostasy – specifically, conversion to Christianity from Islam – is punishable by death in Iran. Suspected Christians are routinely imprisoned and tortured. Despite this, evangelical Christianity is sweeping through Iran. A 2020 survey of 50,000 Iranians conducted by a Dutch NGO, the Group for Analysing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran, suggests that there could be
There are always new ways for drinks companies to make alcohol seem even more exciting. Smirnoff has added gold leaf to some of its vodkas (apparently it’s both real and edible); cans of Dragon Soop and Four Loko deliver heart attack-inducing combinations of sugar, caffeine and alcohol; and the appropriately named Aftershock is rumoured to
