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The trope of a loner, either new in town or returning from years away, who is forced to confront the corruption and violence of the bad guys now in charge, is a familiar storyline in both film and TV. Westerns such as Shane (1953) and the classic TV series Kung Fu (1972-75) revolved around this scenario, but it also plays out in a variety of other settings ranging from Ancient Rome (Gladiator, 2000) to outer space (Soldier, 1998). And all points between. Amazon’s Jack Reacher adaptation is only the latest in this long line of wrong-righting protagonists and has been picking up positive reviews for beefy star Alan Ritchson’s depiction of the

As Sigmund Freud once told me in a YouTube video: ‘Who lacks sex – speaks about sex, hungry talks about food, a person who has no money – about money, and our oligarchs and bankers talk about morality.’ So beware anyone who starts preaching ‘self-love’ at you. Chances are they hate themselves quite as much as you do – if not more so – and have been duped by the latest fad into revealing their deeply narcissistic behaviour patterns. Tenets from the social media church of self-help include ‘do whatever feels right’; ‘if people don’t like you for who you are, that’s their problem’; ‘you don’t owe anybody anything’; ‘always trust

That Essex County Council is spending £300,000 on an advertising campaign to rehabilitate its reputation can’t come as a surprise. The only surprise is that it didn’t think to do it before – or that somehow they believe £300,000 is enough to turn the tide. As far as I can tell, £300,000 won’t touch the sides. And in a strange way, I’m glad. Because Essex, as Britain’s most underrated county, is something of an undiscovered haven for ex Londoners like me. Don’t believe me? Let’s do a test: if I say the word ‘Essex’ to you, what images come to mind? The cast of Birds of a Feather, perhaps? The boy band

The poet Elizabeth Bishop wrote of South American waterfalls that spill over the sides of mountaintops ‘in soft slow motion’, and I was reminded of her lines on the Colombian Pacific coast where seemingly every bay has a wonderful waterfall tumbling down into it. As there are no roads to speak of, the only way to see something of the jungle is to advance up streams from the sea until you reach one of these waterfalls – with the great advantage that there is usually a rock pool to swim in when you get there. And because of the press of vegetation on the banks, you’re walking in the water,

The paperback’s cover showed a woman and man walking down Ludgate Hill towards Fleet Street with St Paul’s behind them and a red double decker passing to their right, dressed in the office fashions of the post war years. It looked like a still from an Ealing Comedy. A friend posted the image on his social media because he liked the look of the Fontana edition which he had found on his father’s shelves. It was a copy of London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins. Most people seeing this would immediately start thinking of the fifties but for me it had rather different associations, triggering intense memories of the

Our countryside is one of the wonders of the world – a great patchwork quilt of green fields, hedgerows, and rolling hills. But our sad little secret is that England ranks among the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Countless species have vanished altogether, and others cling on in isolated patches of remnant nature. While most of us are dimly aware of nature’s decline – car windscreens no longer splattered with insects after a summer car journey; a countryside strangely silent in springtime – few realise the full extent of the catastrophe that is unfolding around us. Accounts from earlier centuries describe meadows riotous with colour, hedgerows thronged with songbirds.

Novak Djokovic’s readiness to walk away from tennis on a point of principle is an act of sporting heroism on a par with Muhammad Ali’s refusal to fight in the Vietnam war. Like Ali was when he said he had ‘no quarrel with them Viet Cong’, Djokovic is widely accepted to be the greatest master of his sport of all time. Ali, then at the height of his powers, was banned from boxing for three years for his stance. For refusing to take a Covid vaccination — a matter of conscience — we don’t yet know for how long Djokovic will be prevented from playing tennis at the highest level.

On Monday supermodel Naomi Campbell was pictured posing with her new baby daughter for the first time on the cover of British Vogue. Having become a mother in her 50s, she described having a child as ‘the biggest joy I could ever imagine.’ And yet it’s a ‘joy’ few members of the younger generation want to share. New statistics reveal that half of women in England and Wales are now childless by their 30th birthday. In 1971, just 18 per cent of 30-year-olds had no children – now that figure has risen to a record 50 per cent. This phenomenon is by no means unique to Britain; fertility rates are collapsing across the developed world. There are all