Philip Hensher
Philip Hensher: Amis was neither a misogynist nor a homophobe
Published: 09 October 2007
Philip Hensher: The so-called 'insane' whose lives are thrown away
Published: 02 October 2007
Philip Hensher: Er, well, um ... And now I have your full attention
Published: 25 September 2007
Philip Hensher: You can't run a regional theatre from London
Published: 18 September 2007
Philip Hensher: Dear reader, I am dismayed. Yours sincerely...
Published: 13 September 2007
The publication by Fourth Estate of a selection from the enormous volume of letters exchanged between the six daughters of Bertram, Lord Redesdale, has been long-awaited. Probably for over 60 years, since the family life of the six Mitford daughters began to be made public in Nancy's novels, the larger public has been aware not only that they led, between them, unusually fascinating lives. All of them had, to different degrees, a talent for writing, too. A volume of collected letters was only to be expected from that generation, and brilliantly engaging it is too.
Philip Hensher: Senator Craig and a modern morality tale
Published: 04 September 2007
The Larry Craig saga is a pleasingly old-fashioned narrative, now difficult to imagine happening anywhere outside the United States or other fundamentalist nations. If it weren't impossible to have any kind of sympathy for anyone involved in the idiotic story, it might make an amusing mini-series.
Philip Hensher: I am a customer. So don't treat me like an employee
Published: 28 August 2007
Ryanair are past masters at extracting money from their customers for the most unlikely things. Having been forced by public disdain to stop charging their disabled customers for the use of a wheelchair when on the ground, they now charge all their customers in order to pay for this essential service.
Philip Hensher: The real meaning of education
Published: 21 August 2007
Philip Hensher: Tourists are the pilgrims of our age
Published: 14 August 2007
Some people find the spectacle of mass tourism offensive and alarming, and in many places it certainly is that. On occasion, however, you have to reflect that the scale of tourism - the sheer numbers flocking round some important treasure - is some kind of homage to the power of the imagination, and of the history of culture. It's sometimes hard to remember this, but in the middle of August, we should probably make the effort.
Philip Hensher: The inspiration of this Utopian vision
Published: 10 August 2007
Philip Hensher: The giants of cinema are all gone now
Published: 02 August 2007
The death, in quick succession, of two of the great masters of the cinema, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, ought to remind us in the first place of their august body of work. But what it mostly encourages us to do is to look around and try to think of any director now living who is at all likely, in the end, to rival their achievement. If it's almost impossible, that well might be because circumstances have changed beyond recognition.
Philip Hensher: Why is 'gay' still used as an insult?
Published: 24 July 2007
Philip Hensher: Young poets are often the best
Published: 20 July 2007
Byron said, after the publication of the first cantos of Childe Harolde's Pilgrimage in 1812, that he woke and found himself famous. The audience for poetry is not what it was in the Regency, but Luke Kennard would still have had a little taste of that when he woke on Tuesday morning to find himself on the shortlist for the Forward poetry prize for his collection, The Harbour Beyond the Movie. The Forward is the most admired and important of British poetry prizes, and Kennard, at 26, is the youngest poet ever to have been shortlisted.
Philip Hensher: Perhaps it's time to drop A-level grading
Published: 17 July 2007
For a quarter of a century, A-level results have been improving, year on year. Almost nobody now fails - 3.4 per cent last year - unless they actually want to. And just under a quarter of exam papers submitted were awarded an A grade in 2006.
Philip Hensher: Shouldn't we ditch this snobbery about popular art?
Published: 10 July 2007
Philip Hensher: The super-rich just aren't ostentatious enough
Published: 03 July 2007
Philip Hensher: Hollywood is helping us learn to love torture
Published: 26 June 2007
Today is the United Nations International Day in support of Victims of Torture. It marks the 20th anniversary of the coming into force of the United Nations Convention against Torture. To date, some 142 countries have ratified the convention, and more have signed without yet ratifying.
Philip Hensher: It takes more than a good voice to be an opera singer
Published: 19 June 2007
Philip Hensher: When did reading become a feminine activity?
Published: 12 June 2007
Philip Hensher: Whatever happened to earworms and autocuties?
Published: 05 June 2007
Philip Hensher: Why do we ignore the bigotry of our neighbours?
Published: 29 May 2007
Philip Hensher: Two-year degrees make a mockery of universities
Published: 22 May 2007
Philip Hensher: The ban on smoking has become a vendetta
Published: 15 May 2007
Philip Hensher: Taking tourism to a new level of vulgarity
Published: 08 May 2007
This week, charter flights are launched from Manchester to a beach resort in China. For a few hundred pounds, you can go for two weeks to one of the most exotic places on earth - somewhere that only 20 years ago would have been regarded by most people as a trip of a lifetime. If you so choose, you can get off the plane at Sanya on the island of Hainan, go straight to the beach for two weeks and not really bother with anything resembling a local culture at all.
Philip Hensher: Should we persecute clubbers for taking drugs?
Published: 01 May 2007
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