We are all Bryan Johnson now
After holding a developmental reading of a play I have been working on about a fictional transhumanist and his world, I was able to briefly…
Why the US sucks at soccer
As the United States prepares to host the World Cup for the second time, it’s worth grappling with an uncomfortable fact. The Yanks are highly unlikely ever to become a…
Can America ever escape race?
Ever since he attained the age of majority some four decades ago, Terence Hamilton, now 57, has voted in Mississippi’s Second Congressional District, covering 30 counties across the western part…
Death and glory at the Isle of Man TT
“Those who risk nothing, do nothing, achieve nothing, become nothing.” Etched into the black marble of a Bradford gravestone, these words commemorate the life and victories of David Jeffries. He…
Russell T Davies is stuck in a purity spiral
My father was a great admirer of the television show Dr Who, right from the start in 1964. Because I’m so old, I remember three Doctors: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton…
How the unions sold out Britain’s workers
On a plinth outside the Trades Union Congress headquarters in Bloomsbury stands a modernist sculpture by Bernard Meadows. Called “The Spirit of Brotherhood”, it was commissioned back in the Fifties,…
Can pubfluencers save the proper boozer?
I recently visited a pub called The Camel in Bethnal Green. Tucked down a side street, its entrance was covered in chestnut tiles but the rest of the building looked…
Can religious families survive liberalism?
Fjord — the inspired-by-real-events drama that wowed last month’s Cannes Film Festival, earning the Palm d‘Or — explores the limits and paradoxes of liberalism. Does liberalism require tolerance for religious…
Inside Britain’s broken war machine
“Time and again, leaders have looked the other way, only re-arming when disaster is upon them. This time, it must be different.” These were Keir Starmer’s sage remarks to the…
Donald Trump: false prophet
The epic disaster that followed Donald Trump’s air assault on Iran was the expression of two extreme likelihoods. One concerned the assault itself, which almost everyone knew would empower the…
How misology stole our humanity
Man, Nietzsche wrote, is “the unfinished animal”. He meant that nature goes only so far in shaping human beings. We become who we are through the distinctively human capacity to…