Cooper, Artemis. Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure. London: John Murray, 2010. On December 9th, 1933, an eighteen-year-old miscreant rushed through the rain at Tower Bridge to catch the Stadtholder Willem, about to hoist anchor and leave for ...
A venerable British political tradition dictates that whenever some important matter arises, the government commissions an inquiry chaired by a renowned expert. This expert duly conducts a thorough investigation"which sometimes takes ...
In July 2011, in response to public anger at a few tabloid journalists" illegal activities, David Cameron reluctantly announced the Leveson Inquiry into the specific allegations and the "culture, practices and ethics of the ...
On New Year's Day 1964, a louche, longhaired Leeds lad presented the first edition of the BBC's Top of the Pops from inside a converted Manchester church. Featured acts included The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Dusty Springfield. The Leeds lad ...
Judith Schalansky. Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands"Fifty Islands I Have Not Visited and Never Will. London, New York: Penguin, 2012. 240 pp. The West is writing over all the world's white spaces. The unrolling triumph of occidental enlightenment ...
When Scotland and England were united formally in 1707, the Scottish Earl of Seafield remarked in smug satisfaction, "There's the end of an auld sang." But if the Scottish National Party has its way, soon there may be a new song and a new ...
After four days of royalist reverie, the imported Union Jacks are starting to sag"drooping disconsolately as the proud people who "never ever shall be slaves" shake their heads free of the spell. There will not be another Diamond Jubilee ...
While British troops gallantly and pointlessly put themselves in peril's way in Afghanistan, Iraq, and soon perhaps elsewhere, they must find great comfort knowing that back in Blighty, Abu Qatada (AKA "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in ...
It is sometimes said that football is like a religion to the English. As the legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once half-joked, football is more important than life or death. Every Sunday, churches are echoingly empty while hundreds of ...
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English taxpayers awoke one morning in late February to discover that the nation's gaiety had been greatly augmented. The BBC proclaimed joyous tidings""Free HIV treatment on NHS for foreign nationals""then the news was flashed ...
On Tuesday February 22nd, police were called to the Strangers" Bar in the House of Commons to remove a man who had allegedly gone berserk, assaulting several others and breaking a door. The alleged assailant was 51-year-old Eric Joyce, Labour MP ...
It all started, says Darcus Howe, as an insurrection of a generation of poor, primarily, black people from the Caribbean and from Africa. Then it raced like a savannah fire from its Tottenham flashpoint to other areas of London and cities ...
