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3 weeks ago | 
thespectator.com | Dylan Neri |Arabella Byrne |Lisa Hilton |Philip Hensher
There’s a scene in Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One in which a magazine’s advice columnist “the Guru Brahmin” (in fact “two gloomy men and a bright young secretary”) receives yet another letter from a compulsive nail-biter: “What did we advise her last time?” Mr. Slump, the chain-smoking drunk, asks.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Philip Hensher |Arabella Byrne |Leyla Sanai |Rupert Shortt
A commercial publisher bringing out a book of old academic essays on Austrian writers, some completely unknown to English readers, might need an explanation. In this case the author is W.G. Sebald, who produced a series of cogitative books that made his name in the 1990s. Before he acquired the worldwide authority of The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn and Austerlitz, Sebald had a career in the academic proponency of German literature.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Rupert Shortt |Arabella Byrne |Leyla Sanai |Catriona Olding
A.J. Ayer and other thinkers linked to the Vienna Circle famously contradicted themselves. A claim such as “all truths are scientific truths” cannot itself be verified scientifically. So whether the assertion is true or false, it follows that there is at least one fact which isn’t a physical fact. Thus metaphysics buries its own undertakers. Yet Ayer’s ideas survive today in mutated form and influence other subjects besides philosophy.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Aidan Hartley |Arabella Byrne |Rory Sutherland |Bill Kauffman
In my dream my father is sitting next to me in the car as we drive around our hometown of Malindi, in Kenya. I realize it must be odd for him, because so much has changed in the decades since he died. He keeps shaking his head in disbelief at the thronging crowds of modern Africa and all the buildings, the vanished forests, the once-empty bush and all the other things that have changed.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Arabella Byrne |D.J. Taylor |Ian Buruma |Nigel Warburton
Caroline Calloway — “It” girl, Instagram phenomenon, scammer, grifter — wants to give you some advice. Except, like most things in Calloway’s world, it’s not that simple. What she actually wants is for Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation (1994), to give you some advice. But there’s just one problem: Wurtzel is dead. No matter: Calloway is stepping in, updating Wurtzel’s unpublished advice guide with some of her own insights and social-media savvy.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Philip Womack |Arabella Byrne |cocaineBy James Delingpole |Leyla Sanai
Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent burst into the world in 1987, zinging out of bookstores into bestseller-dom like nobody’s business. It concerned Rusty Sabich, a lawyer who became a suspect in the case he was prosecuting. There were enough twists and turns to satisfy the most Daedalian of labyrinth-makers, and its longevity was demonstrated by its being adapted into a new, Jake Gyllenhaal-starring show last year on Apple TV+.
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1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Nigel Warburton |Arabella Byrne |Philip Womack |D.J. Taylor
Just about everyone is for liberty, but we mean different things by it. Far-right libertarians want almost all constraints on their actions removed. They desire free markets, no unions, low taxes, free speech and the freedom to be very rich. The oppressed want freedom from tyranny: in extremis, they want to be free from jail and free to live without the threat of arbitrary arrest and torture.
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2 months ago | 
thespectator.com | James Heale |Arabella Byrne |Katy Balls |Toby Young
OttawaFor the past fortnight, Canada’s parliament has been empty. When Justin Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader, he announced a prorogation so his party could focus on a two-month succession battle rather than the business of governing. Excited Tories see the empty assembly as symbolic of the void in national leadership. They are confident their party will soon fill it.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | James Heale |Arabella Byrne |Toby Young |Jane Stannus
Less than twenty-four hours after Mark Carney’s launch, Chrystia Freeland announced her bid to be the next Liberal Party leader of Canada. The former finance minister — whose resignation last month triggered Justin Trudeau’s downfall — put out a pithy six-word statement this morning. “I’m running to fight for Canada,” it said, simply. She intends to officially launch her campaign on Sunday, having already gained public endorsements from ministers Mark Holland and Diane Lebouthillier.
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Jan 9, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Philip Patrick |Arabella Byrne |Edward Howell |Daniel DePetris
In extraordinary scenes more reminiscent of a South American coup than a supposedly stable first world democracy, fights broke out between protestors supporting and opposing South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, outside his presidential compound in an upscale suburb of Seoul. They were there to demand or resist Yoon’s arrest for his declaration of martial law last month.
