We all have fat wallets nowadays, bulging not with cash but with innumerable pieces of plastic. These ‘cards’ have specific functions but they all start by validating the cardholder’s identity, usually by means of a particular number that is unique to us and which we are enjoined to learn by heart. Together with security cameras, […]
The word ‘neighbour’ dates from the days before the countryside was enclosed, when villagers farmed adjoining strips of common land. A neighbour then was ‘the man who tills the next piece of land to mine’. These days, you might define neighbour as the person most likely to turn your life into a living hell. And […]
In January 1758, the publisher Robert Dodsley had a problem with one of the more promising poets on his list. For some inexplicable reason, his client affected to find life in the country more agreeable than life in London. In order to coax him back to a saner view, Dodsley set out the capital’s attractions: […]
1066 and All That begins with Julius Caesar’s arrival in 55 BC and the woad-covered Britons’ heroic defence ‘under their dashing queen Woadicea’. The Roman conquest was ‘a Good Thing, since the Britons were only natives at that time’. The Romans built a wall to keep out the Picts, but then the legions left to […]
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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