Pain, No Gain by Will Davies. Originally published 13 Jul, 2023.Good on the BoE’s thinking behind its efforts to “make the tough decisions” and thereby impoverish 99% of the population (and how that thinking is self-evidently based on things that are not true).Reply to this link … | Continue reading
Wild and Tattered Kingdom by Owen Hatherley. Originally published 29 Jun, 2023.I know zero about Fassbinder and now I’d like to watch World on a Wire.Reply to this link on my website → | Continue reading
Thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic, eight hours into the flight from LA to London, it happened. ‘Something is very... | Continue reading
Off His Royal Tits by Andrew O’Hagan. Originally published 23 Jan, 2023.Absolutely the best thing about the royals is LRB articles about the royals.Reply to this link on my website → | Continue reading
Rose Dugdale’s relative obscurity today seems like an oversight, not least because we enjoy the idea of the brilliant... | Continue reading
During a time of war, it is inevitable and not necessarily inappropriate to limit some cultural interactions with an... | Continue reading
The problem with Wilde is not just that he and every character he created always sound like they’re quoting Oscar... | Continue reading
Even for those of us who agree that the pursuit of perpetual growth is a disastrous premise on which to base our... | Continue reading
‘What should I do if I get ambushed?’ I asked. ‘Well, standard operating procedure in the army is to shoot your... | Continue reading
Volkswagen didn’t need to pay any attention to what regulators thought, because it knew better than the people who... | Continue reading
Shelley’s poetry is full of supernatural phenomena, ‘spirits of the air,/And genii of the evening breeze’. It’s... | Continue reading
New group chats have sprung up to share the latest intel on which spots are secretly open. The best coded advertisement... | Continue reading
Reading, according to Barthes, is like those other solitary occupations, praying and masturbation. Certainly, there are those who are troubled when they come across people publicly performing the act of silent reading.(lrb.co.uk) | Continue reading
The internet was supposed to be different. The new technologies central to contemporary capitalism offer the possibility... | Continue reading
Breton called Magritte the ‘cuckoo’s egg’ of Surrealism, and though his work did eventually hatch in the... | Continue reading
The concept of the dragon is so widespread that it can hardly be the result of cultural contact. Might it instead, as... | Continue reading
For decades the famous and worthy, or would-be worthy, have queued up to appear on Desert Island Discs. On his death in... | Continue reading
Dramatic speculations irresistibly attach to the life of Elizabeth Stuart. Known to many of her contemporaries as ‘the... | Continue reading
One chorus takes up the theme that programming remains ‘elitist’ and ‘middle class’, another that it has become... | Continue reading
As a child of the Cold War – and a Finnish mother – I’m not surprised that anger towards Moscow is rising.... | Continue reading
Almost no first-hand accounts of the experience of possession exist. The actions and utterances of possessed women –... | Continue reading
How can you explain that a cultural phenomenon people know and love is really a cartoon version? And at what point do... | Continue reading
In the utopia sold by the EdTech industry, pupils are guided and assessed continuously. When one task is completed... | Continue reading
On Instagram my impersonator posted a message encouraging his (our?) fans to buy my new book. This seemed like a great... | Continue reading
Stanisław Lem was incommensurable – to SF, to literature, to himself. He was so many different writers – five, at... | Continue reading
Medieval books are known for their aesthetic of plenitude – and not without reason. As a rule, the wealthier the... | Continue reading
The spirits of the restless dead caused medical havoc. They formed part of a complex explanatory system for illness,... | Continue reading
Rumour has it that Xi Jinping doesn’t like children with weight problems or poor vision. Video clips of chubby... | Continue reading
Europe’s leading magazine of ideas, published twice a month. Book reviews and essays (and much more online) renowned for their fearlessness, range and elegance. | Continue reading
Cherries are pitted with sugared almonds. Donkeys shit sweet figs. The virtuous are disgraced, the debauched crowned... | Continue reading
I am scared of Facebook. The company’s ambition, its ruthlessness, and its lack of a moral compass scare me... | Continue reading
Wherever you look, the earth is in flames. The residue is carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, black carbon,... | Continue reading
Elon Musk is a dick. At least, that’s the image the Tesla and SpaceX CEO likes to project on Twitter. His profile... | Continue reading