CONTENTS SPRING 2009

FROM THE EDITOR

CONTRIBUTORS

LETTERS
 
 

THIS SEASON

A selective guide to spring, featuring Gustavo Dudamel, Formula 1, Wallace Shawn, Galileo, David Byrne, Engels and Kew Garden's 250th birthday

INTELLIGENCE

LEISURE | Danger is increasingly attractive. Deirdre Fernand asks why

GAMING | Why a good film often produces a bad tie-in game

FOOD | Jackie Hunter in Chicago on the return of the power breakfast
 

    RePasts: trencher, as found in Marlowe

    Bring me my cataplana: Christopher Hirst on kitchen gadgets

WINE | Tim Atkin sizes up Terroirs, London’s new natural-wine bar      

LANDSCAPES | Erik Dhont, landscape architect, profiled by Andrew Mikolajski         

HISTORY | Andrew Marr on Magna Carta: is it all it’s cracked up to be?          

CARS | Paul Markillie finds that auctions are where the action is            

SCIENCE | Tony Allison, the 80-something now working on his third breakthrough

THINKING | Not a lot: Anthony Gottlieb on teaching nothingness  

SPORT | Ed Smith on Tiger Woods and why it’s hard to warm to him

GREEN | The IPCC reports: today’s equivalent of Darwin?
 

STYLE

PROFILE | The cuddly couturier: Alber Elbaz by Sarah Mower

LINE OF BEAUTY | The smoking man, from Walter Raleigh to Johnny Depp

DRESS SENSE | Linda Grant works out why an €8 ring means so much to her

SHOPPING | The Sceptical Shopper: how to buy a sofa

MENSWEAR | Man in a Suit: William Fiennes, writer and explorer
 
 

CULTURE

ART | Authors on Museums: Anthony Horowitz on Tate Modern

MEMOIR | Leonard Rossiter remembered by his daughter, Camilla

MUSIC | The Playlist: the best of Island Records as it turns 50

BOOKS | Julie Kavanagh explains the intense allure of Stefan Zweig

VISUAL CV | Helen Mirren, by Irving Wardle and Matthew Sweet
 
 

PLACES 

FEATURE | Guyana: Mike Atherton on the country his wife comes from

QUARTERS | The best places to stay, starting with ex-religious buildings

BEING THERE
| An expat’s view of Paris, by Sophie Pedder

SEVEN WONDERS | The biographer Claire Tomalin on the places she loves

SNAPSHOT | A glimpse of the Libyan Sahara, now opening up to tourism
 
 
THE MISSIONWill Smith tries his hand at falconry      
 

FEATURES

 
COVER STORY | THE ADJECTIVE OF THE AGE
The word “iconic”, once used sparingly, is now all over the place. Jonathan Meades looks at where it has come from and what it says about us
 
THE INVISIBLE MOGUL
James Murdoch, son of Rupert and boss of a media empire, manages to combine a famous name with a low profile. Sophie Barker meets him
 
PHOTO ESSAY: 21ST-CENTURY SLAVES
If they’re not shackled, they might as well be. Pete Pattisson goes to Punjab to photograph today’s slaves, and Simon Long fills in the background
 
THINKING. OUT. LOUD

How did a gay Thatcherite become one of America’s most-read commentators and an Obama cheerleader? Andrew Sullivan profiled by Johann Hari
 
MADE OF THIS

First memories tell us a lot about ourselves. Blake Morrison, Ranulph Fiennes, Martha Lane Fox and others tell Nick Coleman about theirs
 

COVER MONTAGE:  GETTY/RUSS STREET

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