The first presidential debate of 2024 changed history by killing off Joe Biden’s career. The second presidential debate was nowhere near as dramatic, for the simple reason that it did not feature the President. Instead, Kamala Harris, Biden’s Vice President and now the Democratic party’s nominee, stood on stage at the National Constitution Center in
I recently convened an urban studies summer school in a top university in Shanghai and asked the assembled class of architectural master’s students: ‘Who wants to be an architect?’ Not one hand was raised. This was not the typical reticence of Chinese youngsters; this was a class of architectural students who have given up on
For many, not just mathematicians, the Riemann hypothesis is the very definition of a supremely difficult problem that might be forever beyond our intellect. Most mathematicians had given up on it, being pessimistic about making any headway. But recently, the first progress – although not a solution – in more than 50 years has been
Last week, on a Swedish train somewhere between Linkoping and Mjolby, as I struggled to open a bag of cheesy doofers that was to serve as my lunch, my travel companions began unwrapping their own picnics. Some, like me, had made hasty and unappetising purchases at the station. Others had carefully curated lunches, assembled earlier
Even Horace Rumpole could not have secured an acquittal for Lucy Letby. The more I look at this case, the more I suspect that there could never have been any other outcome than a conviction. I think a great cloud of emotion hung over that courtroom during the whole trial. I think that cloud spread
I first came across the Zoe programme when a bright yellow package arrived on my parents’ doorstep last year. My mother, like many, had been wooed by the TV personality Davina McCall into ‘living her best life’ by ordering a Zoe gut-health testing kit (at an upfront cost of £299, or £599 for the Plus
It’s a Wednesday evening, and I’m getting psyched up to go catch a paedophile with the boys. Playlist on, rocking down the A12 and chatting to my new mate, Nick, in his van. There’s a man not far from here who thinks he’s going to meet an underage girl tonight. He doesn’t know that we’ll
I recently estimated that, in my smoking life so far and at the age of 29, I have rolled 87,600 cigarettes. The calculation went as follows. Roughly 30 a day for the past six years, maybe 15 a day for four years before that. I attempted to make a reduction for eight months I spent
