David had taken the same tablets for years. Why the sudden side effects?
Long-term medication keeps changing its appearance – round white tablets one month, red ovals the next, with different packaging…
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Putin’s spy game
The art of the big lie: the history of fake news
From the Reichstag fire to Stalin’s show trials, the craft of disinformation is nothing new.
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Less than zero: six months working in low-wage Britain
Going undercover in low-pay jobs, the author discovered a fearful and atomised working class that had lost its pride and dignity.
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Igor Judge Q&A: “My special subject? Magna Carta – or the Ashes“
Igor Judge, the former lord chief justice, talks Leicester City, Winston Churchill and a lack of computer skills.
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Two words, nine letters and the endless, infinite trauma of my name
I was born V. Amol, which eventually became Amol Rajan. Simples, right? Alas, it’s been anything but.
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Late one night a swanky Mercedes pulls up with a flat tyre. I decide not to mind my own business
The accent is… well, let’s just say it’s exotic, and contains the thrilling promise of adventure.
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967 emails in six years. So who is Brian S Gross, and why does he keep sending me porn?
I decided to open all of Brian’s emails in one go.
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I assumed the elephant orchestra was a gimmick. But those pachyderms can play
Training an animal, Pavlov-style, to do human-designed tricks is one thing, but to have it come, voluntarily, to music…
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Carla Bruni’s radio show C’est La Vie is a one-woman advert for the French way of life
The show gives the impression that Bruni is sitting with her tousled hair falling around her eyes, a kerosene…
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Ruben Östlund’s film The Square hammers home the point that we are all still animals
Each thread and simian guest star shows how little distance there is between the civilised and the primitive.
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Rasping old cassettes bring new depth to a familiar true crime tale in BBC Four’s The Ruth Ellis Files
Plus, a BBC Two documentary about Brixton reggae producer Steve “Blacker Dread” Burnett-Martin.
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Here come the bombs: the making of Threads, the nuclear war film that shocked a generation
Inspired by the leaked “Protect and Survive” films, in 1984 a BBC team set out to create a relentlessly accurate…
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If you don’t know who Willy Vlautin is, you should
Vlautin is one of literature’s greats: so why is he still not a big-hitter in contemporary American fiction?
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145 million live within three feet of sea level. Rising oceans are a first world problem too
Poor nations such as Bangladesh are especially vulnerable, but the West’s prime real estate hotspots are also at risk.
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Zoe Gilbert’s original debut novel Folk feeds our new appetite for myth
Is Folk a novel? Its publisher says so, but I’m not sure.
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Unmasked: the subtle bitchiness of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 500-page memoir
To my horror, I found myself smirking in amusement or “Mmm!”-ing in agreement on damn near every page.
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Pale, male but far from stale: what can the economists of history teach us?
In an age of science and statistics, thinkers such as Marx and Adam Smith may hold the answer to…
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What’s the point of book reviews?
The problem with literary criticism in the digital age.
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Donald Trump’s offer to talk to North Korea tests the “madman” theory to the limit
Nixon also allegedly played up his unpredictability in the Cold War, with the US embroiled in Vietnam.
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From immigration to gender, the left is avoiding the hard work of persuasion
It's easy to mock the idea of “legitimate concerns” – but it's better to explain why they are wrong.
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David Mitchell’s Diary: Ireland’s autism-friendly sport and after-after-parties in Dallas
I believe the GAA makes a major contribution to improving the mental health of teenagers, obesity rates and juvenile…
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Marine Le Pen’s new disguise: a bid to rebrand her far-right party as the “National Rally”
Le Pen hopes to present her renamed party as the working-class alternative to Macron’s bourgeois elitism.
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The lost world of the music weekly: why NME was the last of an extinct species
For the magazine’s 40th birthday issue, I wrote its history. I never thought I’d be writing one of its obituaries.
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The Facebooker who fell to earth: how Chris Hughes learned to limit his ambitions
His own fortune is down to luck, but now Hughes is helping to fund research into ending poverty in the US.
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Five Star’s “just fix it!” politics and the new age of digital populism
In the Italian election, Five Star made radical and exciting promises – like a monthly universal basic income of around…
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Commons Confidential: May’s spin doctor is missing life on the other side of the microphone
Your weekly dose of gossip from Westminster.
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Unlike George Osborne, Philip Hammond is no good at politics
Between the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, the Conservative Party is left with little option but to revert to attacking Corbyn.
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Leader: As the battle with Russia wages, Britain is feeling the chill of isolation
The UK, as Mr Putin knows, acts from a position of unambiguous weakness.
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Indie rock artist Soccer Mommy sings of a violent, desperate longing
Soccer Mommy’s debut album Clean is a record that insists on being heard on its own terms.
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