Counterpoints

ONLINE ONLY: Ferguson's Fact of Nature

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:59:45 +0100

Author:Laura Keynes

John Maynard Keynes: He and his wife, Lydia, tried for children

From Hegel to Hagel

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:48:11 +0100

Author:Daniel Johnson

Hero-worshipper: Hegel lionised Napoleon

In 1806, after Napoleon Bonaparte’s crushing victory over the Prussians at Jena, a still obscure professor at the university there, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, reported to a friend: “I saw the Emperor, this World Soul [Weltseele], riding through the town reconnoitring. It is indeed a wonderful feeling to see an individual of this kind, who, concentrated here to a single point, sitting on horseback, reaches out over the entire world and masters it.” Thus did the great philosopher pay tribute to the greatest warlord of the age, then at the zenith of his power.

First in Line

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:42:26 +0100

Author:Alice Cockerell

Tongue-tied: The Princess of Cambridge may have revealed the gender of Britian's future heir while greeting her admirers

If Only

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:25:46 +0100

Author:Christopher Fildes

The latest in if-only economics comes from Japan. The central bank’s new governor, Haruhiki Kuroda, plans to print more yen until the rate of inflation reaches 2 per cent — on its way up, that is. There, with any luck, it will meet our own rate of inflation, coming down. Then we can all relax.

It is to Sir Kit McMahon, who was deputy governor of the Bank of England, that we owe the concept of if-only economics. This consisted (he said) of picking one economic indicator and hanging policy on it like a hat-peg, or using it as a target, in the belief that if only we could hit it, everything would be all right. If only.

Poetry in Motion

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:22:16 +0100

Author:C. P. Nield

Dial M for Tennyson: Judi Dench in “Skyfall”

Skyfall continued the comeback for the James Bond franchise. It has provided a more surprising renaissance for Alfred, Lord Tennyson. When M battles for her job in front of an acid-tongued parliamentary committee, her reputation in tatters and her country under attack from the cyber-terrorist Silva, what does she reach for? Bond’s trusty Beretta 418? One of Q’s exploding pens? No. She unleashes a far more potent weapon: the immortal rhetoric of Tennyson’s “Ulysses”.

Heavenly Bodies

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:09:47 +0100

Author:Jacob Willer

His sweetness was sympathy: “The Charity of St Thomas of Villanueva” (c.1670) by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

The recent Murillo exhibitions at the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Wallace Collection prompted critics to coo, “Not as kitsch as we thought.” Perhaps they never had thought. Many of the exhibited paintings usually hang in London museums, but it has taken dedicated exhibitions to make people look at them.

Wotan's Trolley

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:00:27 +0100

Author:Mark Ronan

In Berlin to review Wagner’s Ring (Barenboim conducting), I found myself in more down-to-earth surroundings needing a trolley in a supermarket. A €1 deposit was required, which was no problem at all, except there were no trolleys in the rack immediately outside the store. Momentarily perplexed, I saw a man exit with an empty trolley, and held out my hand offering him a €1 coin. He politely declined.

Warning Notes

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:56:29 +0100

Author:Daniel Johnson

Banned by the Nazis: Composer Arnold Schoenberg

An Unlikely Acolyte

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:46:59 +0100

Author:James Wharton

Under one banner: Margaret Thatcher was a divisive figure, but she had a steely resolve worth saluting