Andrew Taylor

Apr 13, 2024 | thespectator.com | Ross Anderson |Julius Strauss |Andrew Taylor |Douglas Murray

Every year, the world’s greatest watch companies and their biggest watch fans head to Geneva for an orgy of horological spectacle: Watches & Wonders. Here, companies pull out their latest, newest, most impressive goods, showing off the main products they intend to launch that year and the fans salivate and loosen the lips of their already pummeled wallets. It’s not a cheap hobby to be a watch lover. The whole industry is in an odd place — and this was reflected in the watches displayed.

Apr 13, 2024 | thespectator.com | Julius Strauss |Andrew Taylor |Douglas Murray |David Whitehouse

Velyka Pysarivka, UkraineThe residents of Velyka Pysarivka had almost finished renovating their municipal library. They laid the floor with large white tiles, built a special section for hundreds of brightly-colored children’s books which they brought in from the city, and even painted a large cartoon giraffe with oversized spectacles on one wall to make the place feel welcoming. Although the Ukrainian village was close to the Russian border it had, until last month, escaped the worst of the war.

Apr 12, 2024 | thespectator.com | David Whitehouse |Andrew Taylor |Douglas Murray |Robin Ashenden

Some time soon we will have to say farewell to our most distant emissary — the Voyager 1 spacecraft. After almost fifty years in space, it’s 15 billion miles away and showing signs of wear and could soon stop transmitting. Late last year, Voyager 1 began to decline, sending back spools of gibberish to its handlers on this planet.

Apr 12, 2024 | thespectator.com | Douglas Murray |Andrew Taylor |David Whitehouse |Robin Ashenden

There are many misunderstandings about Israel in the international media, but one of the most bewildering is the suggestion that if it weren’t for the presence of Benjamin Netanyahu the war would end. It is one of those mistakes that at best mixes up hope with analysis, and at worst displays a dumbfounding ignorance. Let me give you an example. In recent months I think I’ve interviewed everybody in Israeli politics who might some day replace Netanyahu.

Apr 12, 2024 | thespectator.com | Andrew Taylor |Douglas Murray |David Whitehouse |Robin Ashenden

So you’d like to borrow half-a-billion dollars? It’s a tribute to the epic ambitions of this novel that the reader swallows questions like this without blinking. In a sense that’s fair enough because City in Ruins is the third book of a trilogy loosely modeled on the great poems of the classical world, particularly the Iliad and the Aeneid.