Blasting & Blessing: a vernal edition

Blast:
The Diana Inquest. Did we need to spend nearly £7 million in order to be told that, no, really, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh didn’t actually order the late Princess’s execution? And yet conspiracy enthusiasts will doubtless continue to reassure each other that the inquest was an establishment stitch-up, while that arch-delusionalist Fayed, no stranger [...]

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

From the Gospel according to John, Chapter 20:
1: The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
2: Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, [...]

Briefly Noted: Sukhdev Sandhu’s Night Haunts

Why write yet another book about London? Why buy one? Why read it once it’s been bought?
The most obviously unusual thing about Sukhdev Sandhu’s Night Haunts: A journey through the London night (2007) is that it’s very small — running to a mere 140 pages, not all of them covered in prose — that it [...]

Who’s out of tune? Ms Hodge versus the Proms

In some ways it’s a pity that culture minister Margaret Hodge’s recent speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research has already been buried under the avalanche of denunciation that her comments regarding the Proms so generously invited, as there were other aspects of it which, while no less wrong-headed and dispiriting, might have at [...]