It has been a turbulent few weeks for the British royal family. First Prince Harry felt compelled to issue a statement condemning the ‘wave of abuse and harassment’ which his girlfriend, the actress Meghan Markle, has been suffering at the hands of the tabloid press, as well as their comment sections and other forms of social media. Again and inevitably it…
Fittingly at a time when the world is run amok by Hollywood stars in superhero movies, this week a celestial body from someplace else in our universe forced its way into the limelight – or should that be low light or dim light, or sky’s night, or Earth’s satellite? Because the phenomenon which we are talking about here is the Moon,…
Anyone who has read up on the history of World War I knows one thing first and foremost: life in the trenches carried with it an awful smell. But does that mean that we should defecate while wearing the poppy, and if we must are we to hold our nose? Did our war heroes die so as to secure us…
Archaeologists continue to quarrel over the construction of the pyramids, and the distinctive shape of the Matterhorn has taken a million years to complete. But what conceit of engineering, or what tectonic shift, has robbed us of our humble Toblerone, bars of nougaty chocolate in triangular peaks? In fact neither the Alps nor the Egyptians dictated the shape of the Toblerone, the bar’s…
As Hillary Clinton convulsed onto the stage in seizures ahead of the debate, followed by her almost erstwhile foe Donald Trump, who sniffled and sputtered the last air from his lungs, what has hitherto been hidden on the tumultuous road to the 2016 United States presidential election at once became eminently clear. For to paraphrase Walter Sobchak, descendant of Polish-Catholic…
When Ken Bone, looking comfortable in a chunky red cable-knit sweater with a handy zip, became an internet sensation after posing a question on energy policy towards the close of the second presidential debate, the whooping adulation and flurry of memes which followed were less inevitable than a hasty and spiteful backlash. For the record, Ken – a coal plant operator from…
On the occasion of William and Kate’s first official trip as a foursome – accompanying young Charlotte and George across eight days in British Columbia, the Canadian province which is simultaneously the Commonwealth country and constitutional monarchy’s most western and most royal – there was much fun and frolics before bedtime as the Canucks clamoured for a peek at their…
When the Italian jeweller and luxury goods brand Bulgari offered to renovate Rome’s world-famous Spanish Steps, the debt-ridden city bowed its head and offered a simple ‘Grazie’. It was meant to become one in a string, more like a pearl necklace of prestigious Roman monuments to be refurbished at the hands of the fashion sector, after the Colosseum was cleaned thanks…
Marx Halle was once the site of Vienna’s cattle market, its floors trampled by hooves and the hectoring footsteps of bartering butchers and farmers, while cows mooed in busy protest against their impending slaughter. Today the Neu Marx area in the Austrian capital’s 3rd district is full of thriving media and tech startups, and the old wrought-iron Marx Halle, in…
In the Russian city of Yakutsk, capital of the Sakha Republic, where temperatures average a bitter −34 °C in the depths of winter, Vladimir Putin spent last week canvassing support and wrestling the local snow man. For on Sunday Russia held legislative elections, placing at stake all 450 seats in the State Duma, and although President Putin is not a member of any…
