Sadly, the philosopher’s resignation from Sussex is a victory for the bullies and anti-intellectualsHow profoundly depressing to hear that the philosopher Kathleen Stock has effectively been hounded from her chair at Sussex University by the mob. Howev…
Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci review – eat, drink, swoon
With a side order of charm and anecdotes, the actor and gourmand makes our reviewer crave a plate of his zeppoleZeppole are deep-fried balls of a dough made with flour and, sometimes, mashed potatoes. The sweet version, dusted with sugar, are often fil…
Miss Dior by Justine Picardie review – fashion meets the French Resistance
Christian Dior’s younger sister is a largely ghostly presence in this nonetheless enjoyable book about the courageous Nazi-fighting florist Postwar Europe is eternally fascinating: the sheer disjunction between past and present. “I will not disguise th…
Mary Beard: ‘If we want to understand the pandemic, we need the arts’
The Cambridge classicist on owning her TV image, dealing with internet trolls, and why her new book on Roman emperors sheds light on our preoccupation with statuesIn her new book, Twelve Caesars, Mary Beard touches enticingly on the life of Elagabalus,…
Forgotten how to have a dinner party? Here are three rules to ease you back in
Step one: don’t try out a new recipe…I haven’t yet caught any of Jamie Oliver’s new Channel 4 series Together, in which he cooks the kind of stuff you can rustle up for groups of family and friends without experiencing a total nervous collapse. But I l…
My summer cultural highlight? An old film where I got lost in Bette Davis’s eyes | Rachel Cooke
A 1943 melodrama offers one of the best portraits of a single woman Hollywood ever drewOut in the world again, I’ve seen a lot of new exhibitions and a bit of new theatre, the heart going out to those actors who, in spite of great reviews, are still ta…
There is holiday hell and then there is self-catering
No salt and pepper, no spices, not enough loo roll – welcome to your holiday cottage“Welcome basket”. It sounds so nice, doesn’t it? So … welcoming. Driving up the M1 to the holiday cottage you booked online, you picture the delights that await you, an…
Amia Srinivasan: ‘Sex as a subject isn’t weird. It’s very, very serious’
With her debut book, The Right to Sex, a 36-year-old Oxford don is dazzling everyone from Vogue to Prospect magazine. She discusses porn, gender dysphoria – and why her students are no snowflakesIf All Souls is one of the most inordinately beautiful co…
We put our shirt on French holiday roulette and the wheel stopped on… amber | Rachel Cooke
It’s been a white-knuckle ride, but we’re finally off to France subject to our Covid ‘declaration of honour’Like many people, I’ve spent a lot of this year playing the great new game of holiday roulette, a wild ride that began for me in January, when a…
Adrian Lester: ‘I’ll never leave the stage’
As he prepares to return to live theatre – in his wife’s acclaimed play about male friendship – the actor reflects on a tumultuous 18 months, and on why he needs an audienceIn the short and possibly quite nerve-racking break between an afternoon rehear…