Language
Pax Britannica
‘Britain’s best hope of renewing and defending Western civilisation is to recognise that the English language has conquered the world without a drop of blood being spilt’
No French Please
Sacre bleu! Why bother learning any French when in France you’ll just be humiliated? Let’s study Mandarin, or Arabic, or Spanish in schools instead.
Lost in Translation
As has been the case for hundreds of years, the appointment of Pope Francis was announced in Latin. But the BBC and Sky News didn’t know their quas from their elbows
Why Do Precious Leftists Loathe Tolkien’s Shire?
The author of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit was a great conservative writer
My Five Husbands
A new short story by Joseph Epstein
Reasons
New poetry by Sarah Skwire
“Weary of Silence, Soon Sickened by Words”
Delving into the various linguistic predicaments of Samuel Beckett reveals the beautiful complications of his writings.
Native Tongue-tied
Learning a foreign tongue opens up an entirely new spectrum of cultural rewards, yet state schools are failing to emphasise their importance
Continental Philosophies
Review of The Appointment by Herta Müller; Perlmann’s Silence by Pascal Mercier; and The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Flouting (Not Flaunting) the Rules of English
The teaching of grammar should be at the heart of the school syllabus. Without it we are killing intellectual curiosity
How Top Boys topple down crime’s ladder
Too many prisoners rejoin society with no education, stable housing or job prospects. No surprise that more than half reoffend within a year
In the bleak midwinter
Christmas can be a bleak time of year. While some feel isolated, others are overwhelmed by the need for a perfect family Yuletide when their reality is different
My warnings to our spy watchdogs
Britain is under attack from Russia. And the government is blocking a Parliamentary report that details it