Dylan Neri

3 weeks ago | thespectator.com | Gavin Mortimer |Chloë Ashby |Nicholas Farrell |Dylan Neri

Marine Le Pen’s political career was ended on Monday when a Paris judge found her guilty of misusing EU funds. She was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, two of which are suspended and two will be served under an ankle bracelet. She was also fined €100,000 ($109,000) and disbarred from politics for five years. Few anticipated such a severe sentence and it is one that will send shockwaves not just through France but across Europe.

3 weeks ago | thespectator.com | Ian Williams |Chloë Ashby |Nicholas Farrell |Dylan Neri

Vladivostok, the ‘ruler of the East’, is preparing to celebrate the 165th anniversary of its founding. City Day, as they call it in the capital of Russia’s Far East, will see week-long celebrations, including sailing regattas, street performances and an enormous firework display. The naval base, home to Russia’s Pacific Fleet, usually gets in on the act too, commemorating the arrival on 2 July 1860 of the first military vessel to seize control from its Chinese inhabitants.

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.

Nov 17, 2024 | northeastbylines.co.uk | Dylan Neri

To settle on a starting point for the riots is perhaps more of a challenge than to understand them. But to understand them with any serious clarity the choice of where to begin is essential. As with any problem, it is always good to establish first principles, or as close to these as possible, and proceed logically. Or as close to logic as our brains will allow.

Sep 14, 2024 | northeastbylines.co.uk | Dylan Neri

There’s a reason why the box office has been struggling this summer, relying on yet more comic book cliche and Disney remakesto get people off the sofa and into those painfully uncomfortable seats, surrounded by people who can’t go without eating something for two hours (and therefore must eat nachos and hot dogs or, in the especially genteel picture houses, burgers and pizza in a darkened, sense-heightening room), or checking their phones for ten minutes.