The shock of Edna O’Brien
I had my first sight of Edna O’Brien on the stage of the Gate Theater in Dublin in the mid-Sixties. Censorship of books, plays and films was still vigorously applied…
The West is losing two wars at once
These days one reads fewer stories proclaiming the turning of the tide in the Russia-Ukraine war. There are also fewer tweets from Donald Trump threatening Iran with imminent destruction. Read…
MR James still haunts England
Montague Rhodes James was the greatest writer of ghost stories in the English language. I think that greatness lies in his consistency. This might seem a small compliment, but it…
Piddington’s very English revolution
At a packed village hall meeting in picturesque Piddington, parish council leader Tim McNally railed against the British state. “The Government has stacked all of the odds against us,” he…
The cinema of 9/11
I cannot recall the year now; I ought to be ashamed. But my grandfather had died in his back garden in Hackbridge on the southern edge of London. Grandma called…
Trump’s Boomer-palooza
It’s nearly 9 p.m. inside Dallas’s American Airlines Center, and Trump supporters are waving their cowboy hats in the air. They are slowly rocking from side to side as Lee…
The working class isn’t asking for pity
In January 1924, a breathless editorial in the Manchester Guardian marveled at the prospect of the first ever government run by the Labour Party. A minor miracle had transpired: Ramsay…
America’s awful post-9/11 remake
The Houthi leaders who’ve overrun the Yemeni coast of the Bab el-Mandeb are a piece of work. Within hours of their takeover, they promised $500 payments to local residents in…
Welcome to the AI doom wars
On Monday, Jacob Coxon briefly became the most talked-about man in Silicon Valley. Resigning from his job as a researcher at Anthropic, he assailed his ex-employer in the bluntest of…
How lust overcame liberalism
The groin wants what it wants, as Emily Dickinson didn’t quite write. But this is exactly the refrain from middle-aged male scribes, drooling in print over the young actress Sadie…