In the olden days, before VCRs, there were some people who didn't like to go away because they'd miss their favourite TV programmes. I've always been, pathetically, a bit like this about books... more
Gardening is all the rage. More and more of us are becoming crazed about it and all 157,000 tickets for the Chelsea Flower Show, which opens today, sold out in record time this year... more
There is no one left at all at the end of Melancholia after a huge planet of that name, 10 times bigger than earth, hits us full on. But this is no Hollywood epic, full of special effects and clichés... more
Arts chiefs have sparked outrage by giving taxpayers' money to a profitable publisher while withdrawing funding from a cash-strapped charity devoted to poetry
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Which books appealed most this year? Candia McWilliam’s memoir of blindness, Jonathan Franzen’s blockbuster and John le Carré’s latest thriller are among our favourites ...... more
I’m not telling you how to raise your child …” These words, as every new parent knows, are one of the great lies of all time; serving as the unvarying preface to every well-meaning, passive-aggressive piece of advice you will ever receive... more
In 1963 — when sex was invented, according to Philip Larkin — one of the groundbreaking books of the century, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, was published... more
At first glance, the plan to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the death of Philip Larkin with a 25-week long festival in Hull looks like uphill work... more
We need to pull ourselves together. Nick Clegg put it pretty well at the weekend when he dismissed the Gina Ford method — for non-breeders, that's a faddy way of rearing your babies with all the warmth and tenderness of a Burmese junta — as “absolute nonsense”... more
This smash hit at the French box office, The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life, is an extended portrait of an ordinary family, sketched out over 12 years... more
The incestuous, drug-fuelled relationship between Mamas and Papas star John Phillips and his daughter Mackenzie has cast a different light
on the era of peace and love. One London writer who survived the early Seventies remembers how boundaries were blurred and lives ruined... more
SPORTING events turn us all into instant experts. Cometh the World Cup, cometh our intimate knowledge of "catenaccio" and Cameroonian goalkeepers. Then, when the jamboree folds up, so does our dossier of facile judgments.... more
With its token £5,750-a-year salary and case of wine for your trouble, our Poet Laureateship has long been what the outgoing laureate Andrew Motion has affectionately termed an "honorary joke"... more
Is nothing sacred? Children's novelist Jacqueline Wilson had her latest bestseller My Sister Jodie removed from Asda shelves after a complaint about the use of the word "twat" in the text... more
The behaviour of Nero and his lover Poppaea in The Coronation of Poppaea plumb a level of immorality rarely exceeded in opera before Berg's Lulu.... more
Gastropubs have come a long way in a few years. Now one of the swankiest - The Pantechnicon Rooms - has opened in the very heart of Knightsbridge.... more
When Philip Larkin died in 1985, he was much the best-loved poet since the war (with the possible exception of Betjeman). That all changed with the publication of Larkin's previously uncollected poems and, in 1992, his Selected Letters. They revealed a lot more about Larkin and earned him excoriation as a racist and misogynist, fascist and porn addict... more
Perhaps we should not be so surprised by the news that Alastair Campbell has become a novelist at the age of 50. After all, as a Downing Street spin doctor, he was renowned for telling tall stories and stretching credulity to the limit. To be published in November, his debut, All in the Mind, is the story of a psychiatrist, his patients and family and "the pressures they bring to bear on each other'' over a long weekend... more
Peter O'Toole's Oscar-nominated role in Venus, a strong take on terrorism in Catch A Fire and a compilation from Roxy Music are among the DVDs of the week.... more
Exclusive: After high-profile allegations this season, Charlton's manager is pleased the issue is now being addressed but says the authorities still have plenty of work to do
Tonight:
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