Benjamin Myers first came across the Booker prize-winning author Pat Barker when he was seven or eight and, though he didn’t read her till much later, she made an impression, even then. “I was on holiday with my parents and found a copy of Union Street, Pat’s first novel,” he recalls. “I asked my mum … Read more
The Grand is a dog-eared Cluedo board of a hotel. The art deco ballroom, its sprung dancefloor covered by carpet, opens into a library used for community events, which in turn leads to an enormous dining room, while the other wing has a billiards room. Everything in this Folkestone landmark is a bit higgledy-piggledy: spare … Read more
The tragic case of Maeve Boothby-O’Neill, being widely reported from the inquest in Exeter, generates more questions than answers about the management of patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Having been involved in the diagnosis and management of this condition since the mid 1980s, I know of no other disease that provokes … Read more
Greasy, hairy, large and smelly are not words that instantly summon up the image of Jude Law. Until now. Because the actor’s latest role, Henry VIII in the film Firebrand, will show him in an almost entirely unflattering light. And the effect will be topped off in later scenes by the pustulant ulcers shown on … Read more
The seat beside me at Vanity Fair’s 2013 Oscar dinner in the Sunset Tower Hotel, on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, was empty and it remained so for about 20 minutes into the dinner. I looked at the placename and read “Kamala Harris”, which meant nothing to me, and started talking to the then CEO of … Read more
The golden days may still be to come, in more than one sense, but Great Britain’s quest to rule the waves once again has discernible momentum. Rowing was a sore point at Tokyo three years ago but this year’s brood made a more than satisfactory start at a sodden Vaires-sur-Marne facility where the crowd, huddled … Read more
For the past decade, the Dutch immunologist Jacques (Sjaak) Neefjes has been on a mission to bring back a cancer drug that hasn’t been available in Europe since 2004. “I’m still flabbergasted that a compound that could have helped thousands of people was taken off the market,” says Neefjes. Why it was removed seems something … Read more
I bought an iPhone 15 the other day to replace my five-year-old iPhone 11. The phone is powered by the new A17 Pro chip and has a terabyte of data storage and accordingly was eye-wateringly expensive. I had, of course, finely honed rationales for splashing out on such a scale. I’ve always had a policy … Read more
The president of Palestine’s National Olympic Committee says he will not shake hands with his Israeli counterpart, or any of their delegation, at Paris 2024 unless they recognise his state’s right to independence. Jibril Rajoub, who has led calls for Israel’s athletes to be banned from international competition amid the war in Gaza, told the … Read more
In August 2021, as the capital city Kabul fell to the Taliban, the west’s 20-year mission in Afghanistan, spearheaded by the US and Nato, collapsed in a single day. The Americans abandoned their embassy in panic and there was harrowing footage of desperate Afghans attempting to cling to the undercarriage of a US military plane … Read more