Belfast and the truth about ‘alien cultures’
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'A negative force' / The luvvies are out for Reform. Is anyone listening?
Border farce / The Belfast border loophole that leaves us all unsafe
Football / Why the BBC won’t be presenting the World Cup from America
Any other business / Can we trust Palantir?
Books / The wonder of nature’s ability to heal itself
No life / My new job at the Amazon packing factory
Consolation / The politically incorrect heyday of noughties gaming
Walk of life / My annual pilgrimage along the route of the Berlin Wall
On my bike / What Boomers get wrong about Neets
Any other business / Can we trust Palantir?
Books / The wonder of nature’s ability to heal itself
No life / My new job at the Amazon packing factory
Consolation / The politically incorrect heyday of noughties gaming
From Spectator Life
Walk of life / My annual pilgrimage along the route of the Berlin Wall
From Spectator Life
On my bike / What Boomers get wrong about Neets
From Spectator Life
Defence muddle / Keir Starmer’s weakness was on display at PMQs
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Spectator Life
An intelligent mix of culture, food, style and property, plus where to go and what to see.
From Holbein to Snapchat, how royals have mastered their own image
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Embrace the squidge of a custard slice
From the magazine
What Boomers get wrong about Neets
From Spectator Life
The politically incorrect heyday of noughties gaming
From Spectator Life
My annual pilgrimage along the route of the Berlin Wall
From Spectator LifeEach time I return to Berlin – that wonderful, awful city where I whiled away the best days of my misspent youth – I take a walk along the cobbled path that marks the route of the Berlin Wall. Half a lifetime since it came tumbling down, there isn’t much left to see. A few stretches have been preserved as memorials, but it’s mainly an absence not a presence – a ghostly gap between the backs of buildings, a fissure between past and present, between the hard truths of the last century and the uneasy ambiguities of today. Why do I persist with this melancholy Wanderung, year after year? Because a walk along the Mauerweg (as Berliners call that zigzag footpath) is the best way to take the temperature of this Faustian metropolis.
The Derby is the most interesting race of the year – and I missed it
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Magazine
This week's magazine
Forever war
Is an exhausted peace looming?
Forever war: will Zelensky and Putin be brought to an exhausted peace?
Volodymyr Zelensky stood proudly on the steps of 10 Downing Street this week, flanked by Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France and Germany, ready to discuss Europe’s latest package of support for Ukraine’s ongoing war effort. Though the conflict has, as of this week, lasted longer that the first world war, Zelensky is in some ways in the most heroic period of his presidency. Ukraine not only continues to stand firm against intense Russian assaults but also seems to be regaining a strategic advantage with its long-range drone strikes. Europe has stepped up to replace US funding and diplomacy and the fall of Hungary’s Viktor Orban has unlocked a €90 billion loan package. Yet it is also the most sordid period of Zelensky’s presidency.
Forever war: will Zelensky and Putin be brought to an exhausted peace?
Volodymyr Zelensky stood proudly on the steps of 10 Downing Street this week, flanked by Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France and Germany, ready to discuss Europe’s latest package of support for Ukraine’s ongoing war effort. Though the conflict has, as of this week, lasted longer that the first world war, Zelensky is in some ways in the most heroic period of his presidency. Ukraine not only continues to stand firm against intense Russian assaults but also seems to be regaining a strategic advantage with its long-range drone strikes. Europe has stepped up to replace US funding and diplomacy and the fall of Hungary’s Viktor Orban has unlocked a €90 billion loan package. Yet it is also the most sordid period of Zelensky’s presidency.
Culture
The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Spielberg fumbles his final sci-fi
From the magazineSteven Spielberg has said his latest film, Disclosure Day, is ‘the summation of my life in science fiction’, which began with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ends here. (He is now 79.) I adored Close Encounters when it first came out in 1977 and still do – that final scene must be one of the greatest final scenes in cinema, greater even than The Terminator. But Disclosure Day is not its match, not nearly. What we have here instead is a forgettable action film with the bones of your average conspiracy thriller. There may or may not be life on other planets, but this poor Earthling felt the life drain from her at around ten minutes in.
Michelle Terry is ferocious in Brecht’s simplistic tutorial
From the magazineThe liberating delights of Aldous Harding
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Another thriller, another teenage incel
From the magazine
Delightful Rossini at Glyndebourne
From the magazine
This Lucian Freud belongs on the compost
From the magazine
Three cheers for the new illustration museum
From the magazine
Cartoons
‘‘You have the right to remain silent.’’
Cartoon
‘‘Oh no! There’s no longer one born every minute.’’
Cartoon
‘‘Do you ever get the feeling we’ve been forgotten about?’’
Cartoon
