Should Jim Acosta wear a tie? For the last two months, since the former anchor quit his job at CNN, Mr. Acosta has been broadcasting online several times per week, usually from his dining room, using his iPhone. Often, he is troubleshooting in real time, far from the high-gloss desk and sophisticated cameras of his … Read more
It is, scarily, 20 years since Bruce Parry first brought Tribe to the BBC. The diffident but determined former Royal Marine visited Indigenous people in the world’s most remote places and, by living as one of them, earned a level of trust that previous documentary-makers had struggled to achieve. Parry was more patient, more respectful … Read more
Helen Mirren has said that there is no earthly point in getting a woman to play James Bond because the world’s most famous fictional spy was “born out of profound sexism”. The first thing to say is that of course she is right. Of course Bond was born of reactionary attitudes and only a bore … Read more
It has come to this: we are now in Ministry of Truth territory. In Washington DC, the Smithsonian Institution, the US’s ensemble of 21 great national museums, last week became the subject of an executive order by President Donald Trump. “Distorted narratives” are to be rooted out. There will be no more of the “corrosive … Read more
When you think of the Bloomsbury Group – the writers, artists and intellectuals who congregated at 46 Gordon Square in London in the early 20th century – you might think of Virginia Woolf; the Omega Workshops, which brought fine art to modernist designs; Charleston, a farmhouse in Sussex, frequented by core members who painted every … Read more
This is the final monthly design news round-up, so we’ve made it a bumper edition. As well as previewing some shows that will be this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, there’s pyjamas from Grayson Perry and Greek mythology reinterpreted by conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan. Enjoy. Maurizio Cattelan’s Sisyphus poster. Photograph: Gagosian If you’ve followed … Read more
I shudder to think who I would have become had I never once been a 13-year-old girl roaming the stacks of a suburban Blockbuster Video. I fell in love with movies mostly because I wanted to impress the older high school boys who worked behind the counter. The nicer ones took time to recommend their … Read more
I received my autism diagnosis about a decade into my career as a comedian and about three decades into being alive. In the eyes of some of the frothier comment section trolls, being a comedian means that I can’t be autistic, despite the likes of Fern Brady and Stewart Lee proving otherwise. This is because people are keener … Read more
The first song I fell in love withSamson by Regina Spektor, when I was 16 and falling in love for the first time. I got introduced to her music when I was working in Virgin Megastore in Aberdeen. Then I met someone in a club. The first single I boughtAll I Want for Christmas Is … Read more
Pick of the weekInvisible Hands: The History Podcast David Dimbleby takes on the history of capitalism. It’s a slick listen that opens in a barrage of air raid sirens and rumbling aircraft engines as Anthony Fisher watches his brother die while they both fly planes during the second world war – before going on to … Read more