In a Spanish bookshop
It is surprising perhaps to stumble across a small independent bookshop in a side street, and it can be even more surprising what you will find in it.
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A little of what you fancy
Can the observant Muslim take alcohol? The most common answer would be no, yet the ninth century Abassid caliphs so much admired by ISIS couldn’t leave the stuff alone.
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Llareggub, trig and trim
Happy St David’s Day, and if you’re expecting to let the sun in, see it wipes its feet first.
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Learning the ropes at The Good Companions
England in the late 1960s was full of temptations, what with barmaids, divorcees and lingerie ads in the London Underground. It was the kind of place where anything might happen, though it didn’t.
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Ignoring the Voters
It is not difficult to find statistics to back up the view that our parliamentary democracies are not very democratic. But is there any evidence that we would wish to make the effort to invent any other kind?
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The state we’re in
British diplomats have been told that they can now call the neighbouring island Ireland. Does that mean that we have to stop calling them the Brits?
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Getting Past the Post
Playwright Sir David Hare wonders why British Labour’s leader doesn’t speak out eloquently in favour of socialism and denounce the whole rotten edifice of British capitalism. Perhaps because he doesn’t want his party to lose most of its seats.
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A Strong Line in Ireland
The worst that can happen to you on a theatre night out in Dublin is that you will be bored. At the end of the sixteenth century in Elizabethan London you ran the risk of being impressed into the army to die fighting the wild Irish.
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Rome by Moonlight
On such a night as this, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe strode out by night in the Eternal City as the moon stood high and serene and the sweet wind gently kissed the trees – perhaps.
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The Turks are at the Gate
How much in common must a community have? Quite a lot, says Carl Henrik Fredriksson. At the very least a common public sphere. Because without it, Europe’s publics will be easy prey for those who know how to play the strings of history.