The feeling I have before meeting Jeff Koons, the extravagantly successful American artist, is reminiscent of the sense of defeated curiosity I experienced some years ago on the way to interview Gilbert and George. It’s the strong suspicion that I’m going … Continue reading →

I wasn’t sure what, or perhaps whom, to expect as the door opened atChristopher Hitchens‘s top-floor apartment in downtown Washington. The last time I had interviewed the renowned polemicist, author, literary critic and new resident in the medical state he’s … Continue reading →

Next month sees the release of The Pregnant Widow, Martin Amis’s 12th novel. Like heavy snowfall, the publication of a new Amis novel has become a kind of established media ritual. Everyone knows the rules of the game: the writer will … Continue reading →

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not the only critic of Islam who lives with round-the-clock protection. But surely none wears their endangered status with greater style. The Dutch Somali human-rights campaigner looks like a fashion model and talks like a public … Continue reading →

It would be wrong to suggest that all of human life passes through the lobby of the Majestic hotel in Cannes. Better to say that beneath its exotic arrangement of palm trees, hanging rugs, Roman statues and permanently illuminated chandeliers … Continue reading →

Douglas Coupland is good at labels. He is an accomplished lifestyle taxonomist, an acute observer of social trends. His books and conversation glisten with consumer brands and pop-cultural name-checks. In the disaffected suburbs of Couplandland, such shared references are the … Continue reading →

Today in the centenary of his birth, there is no shortage of interested parties eager to claim George Orwell as one of their own. Though renowned for following his own path and making his opinions as clear as polished glass, … Continue reading →