Mexico City travel guide: art and design
Being in Mexico City feels, I imagine, like being in Paris in the 1920s, or London in the 1960s: at the epicentre of a new world.
Art
Sting, Shakti and sex: The exhibition changing our understanding of tantra
A woman has her legs slung over the shoulders of a man, bent backwards like a stone comma. One of her feet is on the man’s headdress, while he rests his chin on her “yoni”. I’m hunkered down on my knees in a back room of the British Museum, staring at a carved depiction of oral sex.
Take an LGBTQ museum tour in Cambridge — it’s not all gay penguins
When Robert Falcon Scott led his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in 1910, one of his team saw something unexpected. A male Adélie penguin finished mating with his partner, dismounted — and swapped positions. George Murray Levick, observing, concluded with shock: homosexuals.
Books
El Boom is back
One of the world’s foremost literary movements, “el boom” was borne of the political turmoil that engulfed Latin America during the 20th century – bloody civil wars, military coups and dictatorships, all under the shadow of the nuclear missile crisis.
How a 557,000-word, ‘woke’ Harry Potter fanfic took on JK Rowling
The magical world of Harry Potter extends far beyond the original books written by JK Rowling. With films, plays, spoofs, theme parks and more than a million pieces of fanfiction, the HP universe could one day come to rival Marvel, or even Star Wars.
What debunking the myth of Henry VIII can teach us about Brexit
It took writing a book about the wives of Henry VIII in the viral haze of a Brexit transition year for me to realise: I’ve been here before.
Pippi Longstocking turns 75: The legacy of Astrid Lindgren and the world’s strongest girl
She’s the strongest girl in the world. With her carrot-coloured pigtails, her striped mismatched socks and her freckles, she’s instantly recognisable.
This Belgian archive claimed to hold all the world's knowledge – and anticipated the internet
Down a narrow cobbled street in Mons, a small medieval town in south Belgium, there is an archive where it is claimed all the world’s knowledge is held – on paper.
The new edition of the Kama Sutra proves it is about more than just sex
The elegant Folio Society produces only a handful of limited editions a year; all artistic but never pornographic. So you might wonder why such a society would pick now to republish a 2,000-year-old Sanskrit guide to sex positions – literary legacy notwithstanding.
A gentleman's profession? The women fighting for gender equality in publishing
Nineteen publishing companies were among the organisations that revealed details of the disparity in pay between their male and female staff. Despite a female-dominated workforce (almost two-thirds), the mean industry pay gap report made for stark reading.
7 books, like 1984, that can help you understand Trump's America
Amidst increasing tension between the media and the Trump administration, sales of George Orwell's 1984 continue to skyrocket. We couldn't possibly think why.
35 books that will change how you see the world
Reading lists, book clubs, recommendations, end-of-the-decade 'Best Of' reviews... it can be exhausting trying to winnow down and prioritise the books that will actually change how you see the world.
Film and TV
Pam & Tommy’s wildest moments: what really happened?
Before Paris Hilton (and Rick Salomon), before Kim Kardashian (and Ray J), there was Pamela Anderson (and Tommy Lee), with the first celebrity sex tape scandal.
‘I thought, if I f--- this up I’ll need witness protection’: Chris Columbus on directing Harry Potter
When Chris Columbus first heard that he would be directing the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, he was ecstatic – for about 20 seconds.
007 may be a misogynist, but the ‘Bond girls’ are his secret weapon
To make the feminist case for a series that stars a woman named Pussy Galore seems like folly. I might as well beg Twitter to punch the living daylights out of me.
Sorry Madeleine, Vesper Lynd will always be James Bond’s one true love
In No Time To Die, the audience bids farewell to someone they’ve known and loved since 2006. No, I’m not talking about Daniel Craig.
How Darling Buds of May unleashed hell on Catherine Zeta-Jones
The name Catherine Zeta-Jones conjures images of Zorro–slashed dresses and Jazz-era stockings – not Yorkshire tea and God’s own county.
'Das Leben der Anderen' succeeds because it makes the horrifying mundane
It’s a strange paradox: regimes that try to suppress revolutionary art invariably end up inspiring it.
'The Snowman' is the most powerful Christmas film of them all
Do you ever want to go back in time? Are you dreaming of a white Christmas? Do you still wish you could fly?
In Almodóvar's masterpiece 'Hable con ella', none are guilty but all are punished
The liminal is precisely where the actions - and transgressions - of Pedro Almodóvar’s’ Hable con Ella play out.
'Edward Scissorhands' subverted all Christmas film tropes - and is therefore the most realistic
Rarely, if ever, do lists of classic Christmas movies include ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (Tim Burton, 1990).
Lifestyle
I went naked speed dating – and here's why you should too
Beforehand, my mother said to me: “Do you have time to get a fake tan? It’ll make you look way thinner.”
Needless to say, I did not. But this stands out as one of the more publishable pieces of advice I received before I went naked speed dating.
How the flat white conquered the UK coffee scene
This year, McDonald’s began serving flat whites – with a side of sass.
You may remember their tongue-in-cheek ad campaign, “Flat what?” by Leo Burnett London, which poked fun at pretentious coffee culture with confused customers wondering what a flat white actually is.
'Dans le noir?': The blind dining concept
‘Dans Le Noir?’ is a restaurant chain, with a flagship location in Paris and branches in Barcelona, St. Petersburg, Nairobi – and since 2006, Clerkenwell, London.
The hook? You dine in complete and utter darkness. Deprived of all and any light (they make you surrender your glowing watches and smart phones at the door), all visual preconceptions about the food are removed along with your sight.
Music and podcasts
Why musicals are Britain’s elite artform | Harriet Marsden
I can recall the splash of water on my face more than two decades later: a man is tap-dancing in a puddle on a London stage, and the theatre has created a waterfall of rain to spray the audience like a log-flume ride.
Even for Pussy Riot, gender equality must begin at home
In Pussy Riot, male members are in short supply. But while the Russian punk feminist collective does not have a defined list of participants, one man, Pyotr Verzilov, is usually included.
Who knew storytelling would be so profitable? The success of Serial, five years on
Hae Min Lee was a typical high school student in Baltimore 1999. A popular Korean American girl, she was bright, pretty, romantic.
The first female American Airlines captain who piloted a flight on 9/11
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Bev speaking. There’s been a crisis in the United States and all of the US airspace is closed. We’re going to be landing our aeroplane in Gander, in Newfoundland...”
Spice Girls exhibition: Viva Forever shows Girl Power's still got it
If there was ever anything you could call a phenomenon, it would be the Spice Girls.
HowTheLightGetsIn festival review: A rare combination of fascination and fun
“In these dark and turbulent times, we face many dangers, threats and unknowns. What beliefs and authorities have led us here? What dreams and visions for the future might enable us to create a better world?”
Bastille and Billy Bragg at the Union Chapel for Streets of London: A remarkable offering of solace
Put anti-homeless charity ambassador Dan Smith (Bastille frontman) and protest singer/veteran activist Billy Bragg on stage just before a general election, with an audience of 20-something-year-olds – in 2017 – and what do you get? Politics.
Stormzy dominated the stage at O2 Academy Brixton and proved what a superstar he really is – review
Stormzy famously said in an interview with The Guardian: “Respect me like you would Frank Ocean or Adele.”
Ho ho ho? The Bolivian pirate video and music industry
Let’s say you’re in Bolivia for the first time, and you hear a band you like, or fancy renting a DVD for the night. You soon notice the near-complete absence of original material in the country - no large record shops to speak of and just one or two video clubs with an impoverished catalogue.
Sport
The NFL superfans: Why Brits go crazy for Super Bowl Sunday
What’s more quintessentially American than American football? Tailgate parties, historic rivalries, cheerleaders, star quarterbacks, halftime shows, sponsorship deals… and, of course, the great championship playoff of the NFL: the Super Bowl.
Football's #MeToo has gone unnoticed - now could be the moment that changes
The world of elite football is unwelcoming to women. Intimidated as spectators, derided as WAGs, dismissed as commentators, ignored as competitors.
Last winter two celebs bought a Welsh football club. But what happened next?
It sounds like something out of a fairytale, or a blockbuster movie. Wealthy celebrity buys ailing sports team and brings it to new heights of glory, revitalising a poor neighbourhood.
Moving the goalposts: the footballers using their influence for good
Of all the scapegoats in the Covid-19 pandemic, footballers were the most predictable. The health secretary Matt Hancock suggested they should “play their part” by taking pay cuts.
Child sex abuse, corruption and cover-ups: How football can and must move on from its darkest time
Andrew Woodward has no idea how many times he was raped as a child. In November 2016, the ex-footballer waived his right to anonymity and revealed that he had been a victim of sexual abuse for more than six years in the 1980s.
‘This is not what we fought for’: The battle to end Iran’s ban on female football fans
When Iran beat Cambodia 14-0 in its home qualifier for the 2022 Qatar World Cup last night, only one corner of Tehran’s stadium cheered. A small section, ringed with metal fencing, was packed full of jubilant Iranian women, sporting painted faces and national flags.
Women’s World Cup: Early setback has put Japan’s hope of a second bloom in doubt
The Japanese word nadeshiko refers to a pink carnation found in the country’s mountains. It also describes a romanticised idea of Japanese womanhood: silent, still and picture-perfect.
Estefanía Banini: The ‘female Messi’ fighting discrimination in Argentina now sets sights on England
To be compared to Lionel Messi, arguably the world’s greatest footballer, is heady praise for most athletes. But Estefanía Banini, the star of Argentina’s national women’s side, prefers a more personal approach.
Chelsea’s Erin Cuthbert carries Scottish hopes of World Cup surprise victory over England
Which footballer best embodies the Scottish women’s team? For the coach and former captain, Shelley Kerr, it is Erin Cuthbert. This may surprise some, given the Chelsea midfielder’s relative juniority, but Kerr, the first UK woman to manage a senior men’s team, knows something about Scottish spirit.
