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It was one of those stories that I sometimes pitched to make sure that I had money coming in: a throwaway that meant nothing to me, but which was curious enough that an online magazine would run it in return
When Anita Anand and William Dalrymple sat down to discuss making a podcast together, there was never really any question what it was going to be about. “I knew at once that it had to be about empire,” Anand, a
In 2009, when I interviewed Christopher Hitchens in anticipation of his appearance at the inaugural Festival of Dangerous Ideas, I used our last ten minutes together to ask his opinion of, among other things, Australian journalist John Pilger. “I remember
I was always going to like Morgan Neville’s Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain. I was predisposed to like it. Anyone who devoured Bourdain’s work, and who still hasn’t quite gotten over his 2018 death, was predisposed to like it.
Colin Thubron’s The Amur River begins with the Mongolian authorities warning him that his trip is ill-advised. They’re talking specifically about his plan to enter the country’s rugged Khentii Mountains on horseback, though what he has in mind is much
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, a thread. I put it to you that a great rabble of opinion writers, especially on the right, in the interest of criticising Australia’s lockdown policies, have magically and mindlessly transformed Sir Peter Ustinov
At the beginning of For for Fake, Orson Welles’ 1973 essay film about forgery, deception and lies, the filmmaker addresses the audience directly and sets out a thesis for what is to follow. “Tell it by the fireside or in
The former British hill station of Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, affords the visitor two extraordinary views. Facing south, one takes in the seemingly endless Doon Valley, lit up at night by the city of Dehradun. That city