Are Oxford doing enough to condemn Aung San Suu Kyi?
The portrait of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and University of Oxford graduate Aung San Suu Kyi has been removed from public display in the university, following criticism over her perceived…
Academic feedback kills student satisfaction
In light of the recent release of university league tables, it would appear that Edinburgh is near the top of its game. Ranked 23rd by The Complete University Guide (2018)…
Days Without End
In his most recent novel, Sebastian Barry returns with a beguiling epic, exploring the intricacy of human relationships with America’s Civil War years as a brutal backdrop. Days Without End…
The Lost Time Accidents
John Wray’s The Lost Time Accidents is filled with references to its many inspirations. Its greatest homage must be to Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, in terms of its confused chronology and ‘unsticking’…
Triumphs and tantrums: the Man Booker Prize returns for its 49th year
With a simple promise of choosing the best original novel in the opinion of its judges, the Man Booker Prize will be awarded this month for the 49th time in…
Cult Column: Toni Erdmann
Maren Ade’s 162-minute film Toni Erdmann refuses to be boxed into a genre. An ironic suffusion of the belly-achingly funny and the intolerably serious; the prudishly proper and the rebelliously…
Goodbye Christopher Robin
Just a boy and his bear: Christopher Robin and his Pooh Bear. An untouchable tale enshrined eternally within the childhood psyche. Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga and Roo are…
Pecking Order
In the 1970s, the great Irish comedian Dave Allen hosted a series of documentaries entitled In Search of the Great English Eccentrics, and a later version called Eccentrics at Play.…