It so happened that in between finishing Matthew Engel’s sad and funny lament for the fate of Britain’s railways and sitting down to write something about it, I travelled on the Purbeck Line between Swanage and Corfe Castle. Everything about it was perfect. The sun shone from a flawless sky. Swanage Station, in contrasting shades […]
A set of traffic lights near Leeds Bus Station breaks down with alarming regularity. It is a busy crossroads, with hundreds of cars passing every hour. Nevertheless, as a driver, it seems to me that the passage of traffic, if anything, speeds up when the lights are out. Drivers, who would normally robotically plough through […]
There is no shortage of books about Edinburgh – I wrote one myself some fifteen years ago – and there will be many more, for the beauty, character and contradictions of the city will always attract writers. All that matters is that the book should be a good one, and Michael Fry’s new history of […]
Historians love labels. Post-1945 Britain has long been stereotyped as an Age of Austerity. The Fifties and Sixties resist such easy definition. Some historians see them as an Age of Affluence, the economy enjoying a Golden Age. For neo-liberal conviction politicians, they marked the road to serfdom, with dependency culture and debilitating consensus sapping the […]
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Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm