Columnists

Columns

Hugo Rifkind

Shared Opinion | 5 September 2009

It’s the coal station workers who make the planet worth saving Not that long ago, for an article that never quite happened, I took a tour around Kingsnorth power station. This was just after environmental activists had staged a week-long ‘Climate Camp’ there. ‘Environmentalist?’ said my taxi-driver. ‘Journalist,’ I told him. He seemed surprised. Such

You Know It Makes Sense | 5 September 2009

I have just killed a good friend of mine. It was immensely satisfying. I got him after a long and very irritating conversation we’d had about man-made global warming (my friend, James Heneage, is a believer, whereas I, as you know, am not) but that wasn’t my main motive. Rather, I did it because those

Any other business

City Life | 5 September 2009

After 50 years of communist gristle, no wonder old Fidel’s guts are playing up There’s a degree of natural justice in the fact that Fidel Castro had to cede power to his brother Raúl last year because of serious gastro-intestinal problems. Put bluntly, after 50 years of Castro communism, Cuban cuisine is absolutely revolting. It’s

Arctic treasure quest as the sea ice retreats

For centuries, intrepid explorers went in search of Arctic treasure — but pursued only a mirage. From the time of Marco Polo, numerous expeditions were made to map a mythical Northwest Passage between east and west, but many ended in tragedy and a viable route was never found. Others vainly scoured neighbouring lands for fabulous

Standing Room | 5 September 2009

Louis Armstrong singing the Gershwins’ ‘Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off’ only touched the tip of the iceberg. Potato — potahto, tomato — tomahto; for two countries ostensibly sharing the same language, England and America have deeper cultural disparities than merely amusing colloquialisms, and never is this discrepancy more apparent than in the naming of