Blair Worden
History in Quotes
The Ends of Life by Keith Thomas
Where There’s a Will
Soul of the Age by Jonathan Bate
I Hate the West End
The decline of West End theatre is compounded by the rude treatment of the theatre-goers themselves
Admissions of Innocence
How Labour hates our ancient universities! There they are, acting as though their responsibility were to observe age-old standards and values of higher learning, when in the government’s eyes the proper function of a university is to assist modernising processes of social redistribution.
Will the green agenda be killed off by the pandemic?
‘Will the green agenda be killed off by the longer-term coronavirus recovery? Or might the closure of so much business, and the cleaner air that results from planes not flying and factories not working, give us extra years to gain control of our environment?’
Why T.S. Eliot still matters
His contemporaries’ reputations have diminished. But Eliot’s has grown: he is the poet who shows us what can be saved from the ruins
Music’s in the house
Rappers have found a role in lockdown: chronicling coronavirus with topical tunes. Most people, though, are rushing to the safety of the past