Joyce McKinney is one of those names that for people of a certain age opens a doorway into the past. To mention it is to be transported back to the 1970s, when there were only three TV channels, British food … Continue reading →

It may not be the most heart-pounding news of the moment, but boredom is coming back into fashion. Not boredom in the sense of lying around blank-faced in a brown study, a practice which in my experience has never really … Continue reading →

Of all the American leaders who were assassinated in the 60s, that decade of turmoil and revolt, Malcolm X has enjoyed the greatest upturn in posthumous fortune. In the pantheon of black American protest figures only Martin Luther King occupies a … Continue reading →

In 1985, at the height of the Soviet suppression of Afghanistan, National Geographic ran a cover photograph of a stunning Afghan girl. She had no name, but her haunted, mesmerising green eyes and her dramatic features framed by a crimson … Continue reading →

The phrase “literary London” is usually employed to nebulous effect but it accurately describes the gathering that took place at the Greek Orthodox church in Bayswater on 14 February, a clear blue St Valentine’s Day, in 1989. The occasion was … Continue reading →

There was a time, not so long ago, when sexual imagery was not readily available to youthful eyes. In this vanished world, the pubescent male had his work cut out when it came to finding material to feed his hormonal … Continue reading →

For most of the last century it was widely thought that intelligence was in decline. The idea was that those at the lower end of the intelligence spectrum were having more children, thereby reducing the general intelligence level. Then one … Continue reading →