TAKING LIBERTIES: WE ARE BEING WATCHED
Britan has quietly become the most spied-upon nation in Europe. How? Why? And does it matter? Charles Nevin goes to Manchester, London, Berlin and Bucharest to compare, contrast and discuss ...
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ANNI MIRABILES: 1712
What was the most important year ever? Andrew Marr suggests it was probably 1776, but Robert Butler, a contributor to Intelligent Life, has tossed another hat into the ring ...
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THE SCEPTICAL SHOPPER: MEN'S TRAINERS
Men’s trainers can be good, bad or decidedly ugly. Our undercover expert sidesteps the silly ones and hunts down some modern classics ...
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SLAPSTICK EXISTENTIALISM ON BROADWAY
Is Studio 54 the right spot for the ultimate existential protest against the empty avarice of the post-war era? If you're looking for a good time, writes Kitty Kaletsky ...
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HIPPIE PICASSO
Were Picasso's musketeer portraits, painted in the 1960s, an effort by the artist to connect with pacifist youth? Art.view investigates the surge in demand for late Picasso works ... read more »
WE ARE ALL WRITERS NOW
Blogs, Twitter, Facebook: these outlets are supposedly cheapening language and tarnishing our time. But the fact is we are all reading and writing much more than we used to, writes Anne Trubek ... read more »
SAVILE ROGUES: LONDON'S RAKISH TAILORS
Stuffy? Snobbish? Restrictive? No, sir—bespoke has changed. Michael Bywater meets five tailors who have loosened up ... read more »
WAITING FOR MAGIC IN MACEDONIA
Herdelezi is an annual celebration common to Roma that involves a big toad, a volley of gunfire and some home-made brandy. A correspondent for Economist.com observes the spectacle ... read more »
GOING GREEN: MAKING ENERGY PERSONAL
How much energy do we consume? Does it matter? Robert Butler considers the numbers in his latest Going Green column ... read more »
MORE THAN JUST PRETTY FACES
Ideas of beauty have changed considerably over the last 60 years. This at least is the idea behind "The Model as Muse", a diverting exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Molly Young investigates ... read more »
Comment of the moment
quote I thinks it's absurd to say Jackson's oeuvre was puny compared to those of Presley and Sinatra. Presley was a gifted singer, but didn't do much else. He certainly hasn't gone down in history as a great actor. Sinatra was a supremely talented vocalist and a fine actor, but he didn't write his own material. Michael Jackson, on the other hand, was a true genius-level artist in fully THREE disciplines: singing, dancing and songwriting ...