John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome, aged 25, two hundred years ago today. Requiescat in pace. Whenever I think of famous dead...

Alfred North Whitehead is often (mis-) quoted as saying that all philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. I was asked the other day...

I met him when I was eleven or twelve, because one of his sons was in my class. He arrived in a Rolls Royce, talked affably in the...

I was amused and a little disturbed recently to stumble upon both a couple of life expectancy calculators (here's one) and a page on the...

Language matters; three words that matter more than most right now - because our politicians are encouraging us to get it all wrong about...

At the GOP convention, Mike Pence has been winning back some nervous Wisconsin voters by promising that Donald Trump, man of Law and...

Not being of the Fascism-Curious Party, I will vote for Joe Biden in the Fall. Being sufficiently revolted by the FCP that I have...

Above: Edgar Degas and Jacques Louis David with competing erotic visions of the Spartans. Or Lacedaemonians. Rooting about in Thucydides,...

Recently I was sent an opinion-piece written by the comedian Tim Allen; it defends (or anyway announces) a list of "conservative"...

As Orwell almost said, Little DoubleThinker Is Scamming You. This morning The New York Times treated us to a piece by one of their...

Captain Tom Moore, NHS fundraising colossus, has been promoted to Colonel on his 100th birthday. The defence secretary, Ben Wallace,...

Jefferson's house has been set on fire. Ignorance is one of the chief accelerants. But perhaps that cuts two ways. (1) At the Michigan...

Breaking news: the Dutch Province of North Holland may be safer than cars and more environmentally friendly than planes!! Eh? Oh wait....

We received this frightening little postcard yesterday. The contrast between the front and the back says so much. On the back there is...

In the years leading up to the Second World War, Eric Ambler wrote some of the most influential thrillers ever published - more or less...

I love The Guardian: it's one of the best news sources in the world. I feel guilty about The Guardian: I use it every day and ought to...

Listening to NPR yesterday, I was informed (is that the right word?): "There are only 60 confirmed cases of infection by the Covid-19...

Today's quote of the day from The Browser - which I recommend to everyone - struck a cord for me. It's a commonplace in our culture to...

My old friend Aristotle is well known for the claim that moderation is a virtue - indeed, that we can locate virtue at the point of...

For three years now, an oily moral poison has been leaking from the wrecked hull of that stately grand dame of the democratic oceans, the...