Published by The Spectator (11th December, 2021) Wildland: the Making of America’s Fury by Evan Osnos (Bloomsbury) After leaving college more than two decades ago, Evan Osnos landed […]
Arts / Books
A leader who was a child of his time
Published by The i paper (30th August, 2021) Behind me, glowering down from a shelf in my study as I write these words, sits a small bust of […]
Arts / Music / North Korea / South Korea / World
15 years in a slave labour camp – just for listening to pop music in North Korea
Published by The Mail on Sunday (11th July, 2021) Three years ago, North Korea’s ‘Supreme Leader’ Kim Jong Un clapped along to songs at a concert by famous pop […]
Arts / Books / Drugs / Policy / United States / World
An addiction catastrophe
Published by The Spectator (12th June, 2021) Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (Picador) Last week I was staying in a cool hotel in […]
Arts / Books / United States / World
Miami vice
Published by The Spectator (15th May, 2021) Dirty Gold: The Rise and Fall of an International Smuggling Ring by Jay Weaver, Nicholas Nehamas, Jim Wyss and Kyra Gurney […]
Arts / Covid19
Don’t ignore the country’s cash cow
Published by The i paper (15th February, 2021) It is easy to forget London used to be a city in perpetual crisis, a symbol of national decline in […]
Arts / Covid19 / Music
Musicians deserve a helping hand
Published by The i paper (25th January, 2021) Seventeen years ago, I spent a day in Pimlico with Paul Weller. We met by the Tate Gallery at a time of […]
Arts / Books
The courage of a madman
Published by The Spectator (14th November, 2020) The Moth and the Mountain: A True Story of Love, War and Everest by Ed Caeser (Viking) Reinhold Messner, the first […]
Arts / Books / United States / World
Tantrums of a tyrant
Published by The Spectator (8th August, 2020) Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen (Granta) It is easy to forget the abnormality of Donald Trump’s presence in the White House. […]