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The ship wars: what it means when fans don’t agree who belongs together
Shipping is a complicated and subversive way of responding to a story’s characters – there’s a whole lot more to it than just “getting them together”. Last week, my friends across the fannish internet...
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Food poverty and fuel poverty go hand in hand
Today is Fuel Poverty Awareness Day. It’s a suitably chilly morning to usher in Fuel Poverty Awareness Day 2016; a day primarily designed for those of us (like me) whose central heating clicked on...
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From a bullet to a drone, Anatomy of a Soldier tells the story of a wounded...
I'd heard about what happened to Harry Parker in Afghanistan, and so at first I was a little nervous about reviewing his novel. I needn't have worried. I am a tourniquet, a bullet, a boot, a mother’s...
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“You’ve lost weight!”: why complimenting each other on our bodies is wrong
Having had an eating disorder, I know the danger of assuming that being thinner is generally A Good Thing. I’m always telling people they look thinner. It tends to slip out in those first few stutters...
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Morning call for 26 February
You’ll have noticed that Europe is somewhat in the news lately, so it’s timely that Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Garcia has taken an exhibition on Gibraltar to Brussels, reports the Gibraltar...
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How the UK can win Eurovision
We don’t do badly in the Eurovision Song Contest because everybody hates us – we just haven’t been analysing the winning songs in enough detail. Luckily, one of the six hopefuls for the UK entry is in...
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The Irish general election is happening today. Here’s why you should pay...
Fine Gael may have to find new coalition partners as Labour's support crumbles. It’s election season in a country with historic ties to Britain. No, not America. Another country much closer: the...
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From pornography to surrogacy, too few of us are ethical consumers of bodies
When it comes to buying access to other people's bodies, experience shows that it's a buyer’s market: those with the economic power set the terms. Sometimes I wish I was better at maths, because...
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Master of reality: on Henry James' non-fiction
James elevated the novel to a higher plane – but 100 years after his death, it’s his suprising memoirs and essays that are enjoying a revival. Henry James was the originator in English of...
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To end the Tories' assault on the young, Labour must get back into power
Activists should draw inspiration from the party's achievements in 1997-2010. Today I’m looking forward to meeting our young members as they prepare for a raft of elections and debates in the Labour...
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Loaded dice
Online betting has stimulated a huge boom in gambling – and gambling addiction. Look up “betting” on Google, and the list of links is prefaced by an offer of a £50 free bet for new customers of a...
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From The Roaring Queen to Downton Abbey: the afterlives of Virginia Woolf
On the 75th anniversary of her death, we look back at all the ways the idea of Virginia Woolf lived on. 75 years ago, on 28 March, one of literature’s greatest figures took her own life. Virginia...
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Gorbachev could end the USSR – but not vodka
Attempts to ban the liquour in Russia failed, and Britain drank 9.9 million litres of it last year. But not all vodka is created equal. Vodka – its name an affectionate diminutive of the Slavic word...
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Football needs fans - so go on, make tickets free
Players say a good home crowd can earn them ten points a season. So why do ticket prices rise and rise? There is one quick and easy and happy way to resolve all these protests about the endless...
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"The World at One": A new poem by Kate Bingham
I lie in bed until The World at One, / why should my heart go off with an alarm? I lie in bed until The World at One, why should my heart go off with an alarm? The body’s woman’s work is never done,...
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After triumph in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton is all but guaranteed the...
Hillary Clinton exceeded high expectations in South Carolina - and could all-but-clinch the nomination on Super Tuesday. When the polls have you ahead by around 30 points, beating expectations is a...
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A new national daily newspaper without a website is launching today. Can it...
The first edition of The New Day is out, with no website and no editorial line. Is this a doomed project, or do they know something we don’t? This month has been bleak for print journalism in the UK....
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The Oscars 2016: the surprises, awkward moments, and full list of winners
Plus: bizarre jokes and the #OscarsSoWhite race controversy. The 88th Academy Awards brought a night of surprises. Despite being the favourite to pick up the most awards of the evening, The Revenant...
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Leap Day love: once every four years, women are allowed to propose marriage...
But why on earth would they want to?*/ You know the trouble with heterosexual relationships? One party desperately wants marriage and babies while the other doesn’t, and the lengths to which the...
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Slavoj Žižek: What our fear of refugees says about Europe
The true question is not “are immigrants a real threat to Europe?”, but “what does this obsession with the immigrant threat tell us about the weakness of Europe?” Jacques Lacan claimed that, even if a...
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