Will the queue bring down Putin?
Few things symbolize late Soviet decay like the queue. I remember, in 1991, walking to the grocery store from school so I could hold a…
Brussels: Europe’s Pimp City
A short walk south from the European Parliament building in Brussels is the Avenue Louise, the Belgian capital’s answer to the Champs-Elysées — a three-kilometer stretch of high-end restaurants and…
I was a charismatic Christian
The night before my father drove three hours to Southern Illinois to do battle with a demon bird, he handed me a three-ring binder. Inside was a thick stack of…
Belfast after the ‘beheading’
Sheltering from the rain in a bus stop on East Belfast’s Protestant Newtownards Road, a location whose growing trendiness sits uneasily with its active UVF paramilitarism, an elderly couple looked…
The end of Pax Americana at sea
The Ukrainians have a lot to teach the United States and the Trump administration about naval warfare. Read more The indignity of Gaudí Lego When Russia invaded four years ago,…
The indignity of Gaudí Lego
When asked why his masterpiece, the Sagrada Família church in Barcelona, was taking so long to complete, the architect Antoni Gaudí is said to have replied, “my client can wait”.…
Hunter Biden: from failson to antihero
Let’s play a game: who said it, Hunter Biden or Kendall Roy? “I am interested in becoming a meth head”; “I would never have forgotten my drugs.” “He’s protecting his…
Von der Leyen is coming for Europe’s wallet
The Multiannual Financial Framework. Even for a body as jargon-prone as the European Union, the phrase feels almost bewilderingly dull. Perhaps that’s the point. For hidden amid the technical language…
Starmer’s cynical child-safety crusade
Won’t somebody think of the children? When they choose to, Left-wingers are more than capable of noticing the emotive force of this appeal, and its power as a stalking-horse for…
Spycraft will decide Iran’s fate
After four months of war, Israel still has targets to hit. The latest IDF raids, in this increasingly fictional ceasefire, smashed Iranian missile-defense systems and a petrochemical plant in the…
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…