Up early? I like to listen to Paddy O’Connell at 9am on Radio 4. It’s a semi-political, opinionated show, with guests talking about the news. It’s amusing, witty… and I’ve been a guest, so obviously highly intelligent. What’s next? We’ll take the dog for a walk. She’s called Charlie and she’s a very rare breed … Read more
Soon after the recent contentious Oval Office meeting between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, Senator Adam Schiff went on camera to offer his assessment. “I was horrified and sickened,” Mr. Schiff, a California Democrat, said. “This is Donald Trump caring about nothing of American values,” he later added. More than 2.2 million … Read more
For many years, people living in Lyme, Connecticut, were plagued by mysterious flu-like symptoms, rashes and joint pains. Patients were convinced that their symptoms had something to do with the deer that roamed the nearby woods and the ticks they frequently found clinging to their clothes. But because the symptoms were so ill-defined and there … Read more
Lorraine Kelly opens the front door with a huge smile. “You interviewed me, years ago, d’you remember?” Now she looks disappointed. “Ach, you don’t, do you?” Of course I remember. And she’s hardly changed. I’ve brought a photo of us on the GMTV sofa to show her. Back then, she’d just turned 40, was a … Read more
The artist Bobby Baker was born in Kent in 1950 and studied painting at St Martins School of Art. In her work, which combines performance with drawing and installation, she highlights the undervalued aspects of women’s lives, often with reference to food and cooking. In 1995, she founded Daily Life Ltd to make art that … Read more
On paper, there are plenty of reasons to make a follow-up to A Simple Favor, Paul Feig’s 2018 comic mystery film starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively as two delusive, scheming suburban moms. Though it gestured at being a serious thriller – a sort of Gone Girl for cable channel – the film, based on … Read more
On the richly executed, emotionally resonant terrain of their debut album, Drive to Goldenhammer, Nottingham quartet Divorce head to a fictionalised town that, they say, is meant to symbolise the warmth and humanity they’ve always found within their East Midlands motherland. Goldenhammer might not be real, but the record’s affectionate idiosyncrasies certainly are. These are … Read more
Whatever people make of Virginia Feito’s new book, a scabrous, morbidly funny murder ballad, they can’t say they weren’t warned. Thanks to several instances of real and imagined violence to men, women, children and babies – not to mention a deer, a duck and three whippets – Victorian Psycho lives up to its name, and to the … Read more
In 2013, Jessica Lessin, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, left the paper to start a competing publication, The Information. A few years later, her fledgling newsroom had grown to nearly two dozen reporters and editors and booked more than $20 million in sales, as she revealed in a profile I wrote for The … Read more
Born in Canada, Charles Collingwood, 81, studied at Rada. He began his career in repertory theatre and moved into children’s television. He later worked on the 90s quizshow Telly Addicts and in Inspector Morse and Midsomer Murders. He is best known for playing Brian Aldridge in BBC Radio 4 drama The Archers, and this year … Read more