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Marriage for one

As far as the bride was concerned, the wedding was perfect. Her dress was beautiful, the vows were traditional and she changed her name after the ceremony. The clifftop scenery was breathtaking, the seven bridesmaids were encouraging and supportive: move over Princess Di. There was only one thing missing: the groom. Like a growing number

The Bank of Wonderland

What should we think about negative interest rates? What kind of Alice in Wonderland world are we living in when companies and households are paid to borrow and charged if they save? Seemingly crazy, negative interest rates are spreading nonetheless. Implemented by central banks in Europe, Japan and elsewhere, they now apply in countries accounting

The vanity line

Jeremy Corbyn may not be right about many things, but when he sat on the floor of a train, hoping to raise awareness about overcrowding, he was at least on to something. Of course, in classic Corbyn style, he proved to have ignored reality to make his point: there were plenty of seats on that

Diamond geezers

Ring a ding-ding — here comes the he-bling. Tony Blair started it. The war, that is. On good taste. This summer he was photographed on holiday relaxing in shark-print trunks and gangsta sunglasses under a blue Mediterranean sky. The former prime minister was on a yacht off the coast of Sicily but — uh oh!

Bring back bonkbusters!

Life is starting to look a lot like the 1980s: Russia is flexing its muscles, the Labour party is tearing itself apart, and there’s a woman in No. 10. Political thinkers are falling over themselves to over-analyse the geopolitical precipice upon which the world seems to be balanced. But life doesn’t have to be serious

Notes on...

Mussolini at Lake Como

If your destiny is to be shot dead with your mistress, where better than Lake Como, which, in the words of Shelley, ‘exceeds anything I ever beheld in beauty, with the exception of the Arbutus Islands in Killarney’? It was in Giulino di Mezzegra, a tiny village in the mountains above the lake, that a