Do Put Down That Revolver
A social history of the ‘weekend’ and country houses in England.
The Lost Children of ‘Runaway Train’
The 1991 music video for the smash hit by Soul Asylum featured images of runaway children. This thoughtful piece follows up on their stories a quarter of a century later.
The Age of Outrage
Private Eye editor Ian Hislop is the author of this essay on ‘the death of debate’ and what it is doing to our society.
The Fighter
An extraordinary piece of reporting. A young soldier returns from Afghanistan, deeply troubled, and commits a crime under the influence of alcohol. The piece goes deep into his life before and after his military career and his deployment abroad. http://www.bit.ly/nyt-fighter
The Living Disappeared
An account of the babies born in torture centres during Argentina’s military dictatorship, and the search to find them, led by a group of grandmothers.
This Lawsuit Goes to 11
Entertainment meets accounting in this piece looking at a lawsuit brought by the creators of the cult classic This Is Spinal Tap. They initiated the suit when they were told that despite a healthy percentage share in earnings from their creation, they would be entitled to under $200 in royalties over a period spanning 20 years.
Steve Bannon, Unrepentant
The piece that may have precipitated Steve Bannon’s dismissal from Donald Trump’s White House – a Scaramucci-style candid call to a journalist – on the record.
Returning to Second Life
A piece revisiting the alternative virtual world Second Life, which is still surviving and even generating significant revenues, despite receding from popular consciousness in the last decade.
Do civilisations collapse?
A piece reassessing common tropes we use to explain how civilisations decline, from Easter Island to the Maya.