Category Archives: Culture

The Guardian Weekly – February 14, 2025 Preview

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY (February 13, 2025): The latest issue features The Orbánisation of America…

We’re just over three weeks into the second Donald Trump administration, and the pace of events both inside and outside the US has been dizzying and unprecedented.

Many of us have been alarmed by Trump’s shocking pronouncements on the Israel-Gaza war, trade tariffs and territorial claims on Greenland and Panama. But inside America, an equally startling transformation has been taking place.

Aided by the tech billionaire Elon Musk, Trump has moved swiftly to fire critics, reward allies, punish media, gut the federal government and exploit presidential immunity. Yet much of the blueprint comes not from Trump’s own policy team, but from a power-consolidation playbook established over the past decade by the Hungarian authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán.

Country Life Magazine – February 12, 2025 Preview

Van Gogh's bedroom on the cover of Country Life

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE (February 11, 2025): ‘The Fine Art Issue’ features ‘What makes an Old Master?’….

Let the art rule the head

The UK’s status as a world leader in creative industries will be in peril if we fail to nurture art-and-design skills in our schools, argues Tristram Hunt

Let’s fall in love

Laura Parker investigates the boxing, croaking, crooning, dad dancing and even murder that passes for courtship ritual in the animal kingdom

Beauty and the blimp

Could a new airship designed in Britain deliver eco-friendly aviation, asks Charles Harris

Country Life 12 February 2025

Interiors

Amelia Thorpe picks out glass acts in world of garden rooms, greenhouses and orangeries

Soup-er charged

Tom Parker Bowles reveals how to beef up a boozy, hot-as-Hades French onion soup

A leap in the dark

The play of light and shade has long defined Western art. Michael Hall examines what Constable called ‘the chiaroscuro of nature’

The Duke of Richmond’s favourite painting

The owner of Goodwood picks a work that reflects the sporting history of the West Sussex estate

Three wishes for food and farming

Minette Batters calls for the UK to set a self-sufficiency target for producing its own food

Nature and nurture

In the final article of a three-part series, Tim Richardson ponders the innovation and imagination behind the wonderful grounds at Bramham Park, West Yorkshire

Bramham Park

The legacy

Amie Elizabeth White applauds altruistic John Ritchie Findlay, who paved the way for Scotland’s National Portrait Gallery

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell backs a winner with a range of horseshoe jewellery

Light work

Tiffany Daneff is dazzled by the transformation of a dark London garden into a light-filled oasis

Foraging

Winter mushrooms are a rarity, but the striking velvet shank earns John Wright’s approval as a welcome addition to game pie

Arts & antiques

Carla Passino marvels at the masterpieces amassed by Swiss collector Oskar Reinhart as the works go on show in London

Wick me up before you go-go

The wick trimmer’s work was never done in candlelit times, discovers Matthew Dennison

The New Yorker Magazine – February 17, 2025

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE (February 10, 2025): The latest issue features Rea Irvin’s “Eustace Tilley” at One Hundred – The magazine celebrates its centenary.

The Editorial Battles That Made The New Yorker

The magazine has three golden rules: never write about writers, editors, or the magazine. On the occasion of our hundredth anniversary, we’re breaking them all. By Jill Lepore

Onward and Upward

Harold Ross founded The New Yorker as a comic weekly. A hundred years later, we’re doubling down on our commitment to the much richer publication it became. By David Remnick

The “Intactivists” Campaigning Against the Cut

New York’s biggest foreskin fans take their anti-circumcision message to the streets. By Diego Lasarte

The New York Times Magazine – Feb. 9, 2025

Current cover

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (February 7, 2025): The 2.9.25 Issue (The Love and Sex Issue) features Mireille Silcoff on Generation X womens’ improving sex lives; Lisa Miller on how weight loss drugs can upset a couple’s intimacy; Daniel Oppenheimer on his realization through couples therapy that the problem in his marriage was him; Stella Tan on confessions from those who ghosted their dates; The Ethicist answers a series of sex related queries; and more.

Why Gen X Women Are Having the Best Sex

In an era plagued by sex negativity, only one generation seems immune: mine.

Digital Drugs Have Us Hooked. Dr. Anna Lembke Sees a Way Out.

The psychiatrist and author of “Dopamine Nation” wants us to find balance in a world of temptation and abundance. By Lulu Garcia

The Other Side of Getting Ghosted

Ten people explain why, instead of saying it’s over, they decided to just disappear.Interviews by Stella Tan

Country Life Magazine – February 5, 2025 Preview

Cover of Country Life February 5, 2025

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE (February 5, 2025): The ‘Travel Issue’ features The Romance and Risk of a Big Adventure….

The inimitable Wodehouse

Roderick Easdale marvels at the ‘pure word music’ of P. G. Wodehouse, whose aristocratic comedies are still treasured as English-language classics

All I have to do is dream

Nod off with Tree Carr as she investigates what it means when our sleeping hours are filled with enchanting visions of wildlife and the natural world

London Life

· Giles Kime admires The Goring’s stylish new look

· All you need to know in the capital this month

· Arabella Youens visits the best second-hand markets

Travel

· Richard MacKichan dives into Canada

· Kate Eshelby treks across Pakistan

· Rosie Paterson takes a chance on Italy

· Adam Hay-Nicholls follows in Bond’s tyre tracks in the Swiss Alps

Country Life 5 February 2025

· Rosie Paterson ventures into the US wilderness

· Hetty Lintell selects top travel accessories

· Christopher Wallace relives a Cape Town-to-Cairo adventure

· Pamela Goodman visits a faithful old geyser

Jason Goodwin’s favourite painting

The writer and historian selects a pencil drawing alive with energy

Ruin and rebirth

In the second of three articles, John Goodall tells how Bramham Park in West Yorkshire rose from the ashes of an 1828 fire

Country Life 5 February 2025

The legacy

Octavia Pollock places David Garrick centre stage for his role in revolutionising the theatre

Interiors

The latest lamps and lighting options, with Amelia Thorpe

Pottery winners

Tiffany Daneff talks terracotta with Beth Tarling, a Cornish collector with a passion for flowerpots

Foraging

All flash and no flavour — John Wright pans the scarlet elfcup

Arts & antiques

Carla Passino reveals the tale of the Royal Academy’s Prince and ponders the identity of the sitter for a 16th-century Venus

Let there be light

Matthew Dennison enlightens us on the history of the chandelier from its origins as a candlelit ‘crown of shimmering gold’

Alright, petal

Catriona Gray meets the talented botanical illustrators celebrating 30 years of chronicling Chelsea Physic Garden’s plant collection

Chronicles Magazine — February 2025 Preview

Magazine - Chronicles

CHRONICLES MAGAZINE (February 4, 2025): The latest issue features ‘Twilight Of The Boomers’ …

The Boomer Truth Regime

by Neema Parvini

Baby boomers have safeguarded and perpetuated a grand myth through which they interpret past and present events, and derive motivations. Myth is one hell of a drug.

Post-Boomer Conservatism

by Declan Leary

Baby boomer conservatism arose during the salad days of American capitalism, the apex of American military might, and the drama of the Cold War. That’s all gone and the young right stands at a crossroads.

Forever Young

by Lane Scott

The boomers received the American dream on a silver platter and they destroyed it. That is their legacy.

The New York Times Magazine – Feb. 2, 2025

Current cover

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (February 1, 2025): The 2.2.25 Issue features Charles Homans on Trump supporters’ wishes for his return to power; James Forman Jr. on the emptying on America’s youth prisons; C.J. Chivers on invasive crabs in New England; and more.

What Trump’s Supporters Want for the Future of America

Scenes from a return to power in Washington.

Invasive Crabs Have Taken Over New England. One Solution? Eat Them.

America’s Northeastern coast has been overrun by crabs from Europe and Asia. Luckily, they’re delicious.

‘The Return of the King’: Trump Embraces Trappings of the Throne

Restored to power, President Trump claimed that God put him there and asserted the right to single-handedly redraw the world map as he sees fit.

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE – January 29, 2025 Issue

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE (January 28, 2025): The latest issue features ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ – The wonderful thing about Springers…

Full of the joys of spring(ers)

The non-stop English springer is still our number one working spaniel, reveals Matthew Dennison, as he delves into this enthusiastic, energetic breed

Snake, rattle and roll

Rob Crossan investigates the deeply spiritual origins of that enduring family board-game favourite Snakes and Ladders

Heard it on the radio

The wireless broke new ground as the first form of home-based mass entertainment and is still going strong in the age of the smart speaker, finds Ben Lerwill

Friends with benefits

Nematodes are a natural way to halt the march of all manner of garden pests and Charles Quest-Ritson is a convert

Mould and behold

Josiah Wedgwood was a brilliant businessman with a remarkable social conscience. Tristram Hunt assesses his life and legacy

Catch us if you can

Owain Jones sizes up six of the best as he picks out the players to watch in this year’s Guinness Six Nations rugby extravaganza

Roger Morgan-Grenville’s favourite painting

The conservation campaigner selects a work that inspired his lifelong obsession with seabirds

A Palladian premonition

Richard Hewlings offers a fresh analysis of the architecture at Bramham Park, a highly original West Yorkshire country house

The legacy

Kate Green remembers Robert FitzRoy, the founder of the Met Office whose name lives on in the BBC’s Shipping Forecast

Dear country diary

Paul Fleckney flicks through The Guardian’s Country Diary, which has offered a snapshot of rural life for more than 120 years

Interiors

The best stoves and fireplaces picked by Amelia Thorpe, plus the alternatives to burning logs

Luxury

Hetty Lintell’s top timepieces and James Haskell’s favourite things

Magnificent mahonias

Charles Quest-Ritson makes the case for mahonias, arguing that their pleasantly scented flowers are a seasonal delight

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson pairs peppery horseradish with salmon fillets

Ring-dove beauteous!

John Lewis-Stempel coos over the much-maligned wood pigeon, that canny, keen-eyed and fast-flying stalwart of our countryside

Travel: An Historical Tour Of The Bronx, New York

SUNDAY MORNING (January 26, 2025): Comedian and actress Susie Essman was a kid from the Bronx, and maintains a devotion to this monumental, magical and, at times, maligned slice of the Big Apple.

She takes “Sunday Morning” viewers on a tour, joined by such Bronx luminaries as writer and humorist Ian Frazier, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, actor and playwright Chazz Palminteri, rapper and entrepreneur Fat Joe, and Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson.