Every Christmas in Italy, a familiar figure appears in nativity scenes and town squares: the zampognaro (bagpipes musician). Wrapped in a heavy cloak, moving slowly, playing a sound that feels older than memory itself, he seems suspended in time. For Italians, that sound means Christmas – anticipation, devotion, winter, faith. Yet behind this apparently simple, folkloric image lies a far…
The Six Billion Dollar Man: Julian Assange and the Price of Truthis a blistering, essential documentary that forces us to look – really look – at power, war, and the astonishing cost of telling the truth.
Eugene Jarecki’sThe Six Billion Dollar Man: Julian Assange and the Price of Trutharrives in cinemas on19 December, and it does so not quietly, but with…
Ah, freedom. The word we print on tote bags, chant at rallies, sprinkle across Instagram like Parmigiano on pasta. We live in the age that claims to worship it more than any other… and yet, if you listen closely, something feels off. Like a slightly sour note in an otherwise well-rehearsed choir. No, we’re not living under tyrants twirling moustaches and banning books at dawn. Our century…
There are days when modern life feels like an endless parade of warning labels: Mind the step. Hot beverage may be hot. Do not ingest the candle. And in these moments, my mind wanders back to the generations who somehow survived childhood armed with nothing but a slice of bread, an optimistic belief in gravity, and a complete absence of adult supervision.Let us take a little wander through the…
I’ve long suspected we mums are living in an age where the greatest crime isn’t forgetting the PTA raffle… it’s daring to parent differently. And nothing proves it quite like the saga currently unfolding in the Italian woods, where a British -Australian family attempting a wholesome “back-to-nature” childhood found themselves at the centre of a national storm, mushroom poisoning…
Edgar’s offhand wisdom inKing Lear– “ripeness is all” – is a marvellous thing to whisper into the ear of any parent currently living with a human in the body of a hormonal small asteroid. It isn’t a rallying cry for control, nor a promise of tidy victories. It’s the quiet, knotted knowledge that some growth can’t be manufactured, only allowed. Which…
Let’s not dress this up in polite court language: the monarchy has been called into account – and yes, I’m cheering. The man formerly known as Prince Andrew, scion of privilege and poster-boy for entitlement, has been stripped of his princely style, uprooted from his Windsor estate, and quite possibly forced to stare at a life he never truly earned.
The Facts: The end of “Prince…
Oh, my darling ghouls and sceptics, let’s drop the plastic pumpkins and talk truth. Halloween – that glitter-covered parade of cobwebbed nonsense – didn’t begin with a candy company or a Hollywood slasher flick. No, my loves, it was born from bonfires, bones, and the exquisite terror of the unknown.
You see, before Starbucks sold “Pumpkin Spice Anything,” there were Celts…
Ah, laziness. That deliciously taboo word that sends shivers down the spine of every productivity guru and LinkedIn warrior. We’ve been told for decades that idleness is the enemy of success — that to sit still is to fall behind. Yet, I propose something rather scandalous: perhaps laziness isn’t the disease of our age, but the antidote.
We live in a society that worships exhaustion. We…
It was a scene of pure, urban poetry. As a sudden downpour lashed a public square, dozens of pedestrians made a dash for the nearest shelter: the billowing, stainless-steel skirt of a giant Marilyn Monroe.For a few minutes, the iconography was turned on its head. The very same skirt that once caused a cinematic frisson in The Seven Year Itch was now serving as a communal umbrella. Laughter…