Sex
Is it a Rake’s or a Pilgrim’s Progress for Rob Doyle?
‘To live and die without knowing the psychedelic experience,’ says the narrator of Threshold, ‘is comparable to never having encountered…
The good sex award goes to Sarah Hall: Sudden Traveller reviewed
Sarah Hall should probably stop publishing short stories for a while to give other writers a chance. If she’s not…
How does Elizabeth Day get so much out of her interviewees? Flattery
Every so often an idea for a show will come along that is perfect, and therefore should never be made.…
Hands free: I’ve joined a new kind of abstinence movement
Eight years ago, I had an erotic epiphany. It was around midnight: I had sex on the brain and porn…
It was pretty good for me: Joan Bakewell on the Sixties
For me this book evokes a Gigi duet moment: ‘You wore a gown of gold.’ ‘I was all in blue.’…
The cruise of a lifetime: Proleterka, by Fleur Jaeggy, reviewed
Near the start of Fleur Jaeggy’s extraordinary novel Proleterka, the unnamed narrator reflects: ‘Children lose interest in their parents when…
Dating apps are full of ‘woke’ profiles – no wonder we’re no longer having sex
I interviewed a prominent 1970s women’s liberationist recently and ended up discussing the sexual culture of her political heyday. ‘Everyone…
Why the BBC International Playwriting Competition really matters
We don’t know whether ‘Aziz H’ listened to radio plays as he grew up in Yemen. In fact we don’t…
Casanova: the scandalous libertine who seduced his own daughter
This monumental unabridged audio production of Casanova’s memoir The Story of My Life in three volumes covers his first 49…
How did the BBC’s podcast Unexpected Fluids ever get made?
You may have noticed the flood of podcasts that’s been pouring out of the BBC since the launch of its…
Lonely hearts and guilty minds: the world of Pamela Hansford Johnson
The revival of interest in mid-20th century novelists is one of the most positive and valuable developments of our time.…
The passions of Paulo: Enigma Variations, by André Aciman, reviewed
André Aciman’s 2007 debut novel, Call Me By Your Name, was a sensuous, captivating account of the passionate love a…
Blacktivist rhetoric and impenetrable symbols: Misty reviewed
Arinzé Kene’s play Misty is a collection of rap numbers and skits about a fare dodger, Lucas, from Hackney. Lucas…
Bad news for fans of good TV drama – there’s three more corkers to keep up with
This week was bad news for fans of good television drama series — mainly because there’s now three more of…
Blue pill-pushers: Why is Viagra being marketed to young men?
In September last year, official figures showed a startling rise in the number of young British men turning up at…
A non-sniggering look at the latest developments in the lucrative sex-robot market
This week on Channel 4, we watched a cheery 58-year-old American engineer called James going on a first date. He…
High life
The death of the richest woman on this planet, as the tabloids dubbed Liliane Bettencourt, brought back some vivid memories,…
The joy of sex
Your typical Trollope-loving, Brahms-bothering Spectator reader probably won’t be aware that the most recent winner of Big Brother was a…
This charming man
Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled is set during the American Civil War and is about a wounded Union solider, Corporal John…
Strategies for seduction
The rough English translation of Kamasutra is pleasure (kama) treatise (sutra). In the West, since it was first (rather surreptitiously)…
High life
New York Even after all these years, I’m still at times floored by the scale of the place. And…
Gender fluid
Benjamin Franklin thought that an excess of electric fluid gave rise to positive electricity, and a deficiency of the fluid…
Sex on legs
That joke about the young bull who tells the old bull, ‘Hey, Dad, see all those cows — let’s run…
Weekend world
When the time comes to make programmes looking back on the 2010s, I wonder which aspects of life today will…
How they tried (and failed) to make ‘La Marseillaise’ nicer
Friendly words England football fans sang ‘La Marseillaise’ in a friendly match at Wembley. The anthem has not always been…
