Summer study courses for young composers have been popular for a few generations. After the second world war, up-and-coming experimental composers started flocking to places like Darmstadt in Germany for the Internationale Ferienkursen für Neue Musik. Olivier Messiaen taught there in the late 1940s and 1950s, when among his students were Stockhausen and Boulez. Attending
My friend Andrew is angry. He has just had the bat people round to look at his building project in Swanage. There was no evidence of bats that they could find, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. A full survey would be required. In total the non-existent bats in our village hall cost the
If Donald Trump does return to the White House, then another restoration could soon follow. Woody Johnson, a confidant of the president since the 1980s, served as his man in London from 2017 to 2021 and is now tipped for a second spell as ambassador. ‘What I know about President Trump is if he asks
Another of my ageing Bedales school cohort has died and so there’s an ad hoc reunion in his honour at the pub in Steep, the bucolic village near Petersfield, scene of our youth, where we used to sneak out to smoke and drink when the teachers weren’t looking. Which they often weren’t. Bedales implanted itself
‘A society is measured by the treatment of its prisoners,’ Winston Churchill said. Last year, in England and Wales, every three and a half days a prisoner killed themselves. What does this say about our society? Perhaps you think: why should we care – aren’t there better things to worry about than criminals committing suicide?
Anew political bromance is brewing on the continent. Keir Starmer has met Olaf Scholz, his German counterpart, three times since he entered Downing Street last month. Already the two men have found plenty in common. Both are social democrats, both are lawyers from similar backgrounds and both went through a socialist phase before selling themselves
Maria Corina Machado is showing the world how opposition politicians can fight an autocrat. When President Nicolas Maduro tried to thwart her campaign by banning her from taking domestic flights, she drove between her rallies on a motorcycle. When he then banned her from running as a candidate in Venezuela’s presidential election, which takes place
Aron D’Souza likes to celebrate the new year with Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist billionaire who is good friends with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. ‘Before Peter had kids, we’d go on these holidays around the world. Small group of us. Gay, tech, venture capital, founder-types,’ says D’Souza, an Australian businessman. ‘It’s quite a close-knit
On Woman’s Hour recently, Anita Rani and her guests set out to celebrate the positive sides of a woman’s midlife. Forget the crisis: your forties and fifties could instead be a time for change, a refresh. You could take up a new hobby, they said, or a new exercise regime. Or you could get a
For the past decade, the basic lines of conflict in American public life seemed clear. Donald Trump was pitted against the establishment, the ‘basket of deplorables’ who supported him against the elites. The reality was more complicated. Yes, plenty of rich and powerful Americans supported Trump and plenty of poorer Americans on the fringes of
The Hollywood adaptation of Conclave, Robert Harris’s thriller about a conspiracy to rig a papal election, won’t be in cinemas until November. But judging by the trailer released last week, its starry cast, crafty plot and spectacular cinematography – jets of smoke scattering cardinals as an explosion shatters the Sistine Chapel – will instantly erase
I’m struck just in your presence,’ a news anchor gushed to Kamala Harris in January. The Vice President beamed, nodding for her interviewer to continue. ‘You hear candidates suggesting that a vote for President Biden, because of his age, is a vote for you.’ The reporter paused: ‘And that is hurled as an insult.’ Harris
On Monday, Donald J. Trump sent out an urgent campaign memo. ‘Joe Biden just dropped out of the race, and now, his replacement has just been announced,’ it said. ‘It’s me!’ How typically Donald. If Trump were worried about the sudden replacement of Biden with Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket, he’d
Nouakchott in Mauritania is often referred to as the ‘worst capital city in the world’. That may be a little harsh, but it is difficult to recommend it to Spectator readers as a must-visit destination. The heat is savage, the poverty endemic, corruption is off the scale and this west African country is one of
Over the past three decades, astronomers have discovered planets orbiting Sun-like stars throughout the universe. This discovery ended 2,500 years of debate about whether worlds existed beyond our solar system, but it came with a shock. The most common kind of planet in the universe is the type of world that doesn’t exist in our
It’s probably escaped most people’s attention, what with the football, the election, the Ukraine war, the horrors of Gaza, the assassination attempt and the revelation that the most powerful human on the planet has the intellectual sharpness of a daffodil. But in the past few weeks, the world of travel has been roiled by a
Moonlight shines on the wings of the reconnaissance drone as it glides over the field. Within minutes, the Leleka – Ukrainian for ‘stork’ – crosses the border into Russia’s Belgorod region. The soldiers monitoring it wait in their car, hidden in the undergrowth. Soon the image on their laptop freezes: the Russians are jamming the
I was hoping to fly the first hydrogen balloon across the Atlantic and had been waiting for a year to get the right call from our weather men. I had postponed the trip last year, when there was not a single track that would get us from the USA to Europe. Was it climate change?
Future House is a weird private members’ club. There’s a mattress on the floor for napping, a bathtub designed to hold ice and bottled beers, a robot dog imported from China and a purple neon sign that reads: ‘Just F***ing Build Something.’ Around 9 p.m. on a Wednesday, the place is rammed. ‘I missed the
Milwaukee, Wisconsin If you want to see how Donald Trump has changed his party, look at what attendees wore to this week’s convention in Milwaukee. Gone are the days when Republicans plumped for preppy blazers and demure khakis; now the fashion is for ostentatious displays of red, white and blue. Even the red ‘MAGA’ baseball