The Last World Cup
The evidence for the premise that international sport spreads peace and goodwill has always been fairly thin: every major tournament is dressed up that way but the legacy is more often mothballed stadiums and simmering resentment, as was the case after South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014. Rarely, though, has a regime so brazenly signalled its indifference to the niceties of international sport, which require at least the pretence that bad behaviour gets put on hold. As the saying goes, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, and this is the currency in which Fifa likes to trade. But Putin isn’t having any of it. He seems to have treated the award of the tournament as a licence to try his luck. More
‘Vertigo’ after Weinstein
It isn’t just that Alfred Hitchcock was devious, a fantasist, a voyeur and a predator. It isn’t just that no matter how many Harvey Weinsteins are exposed, it could never be enough to deliver justice to those who have been wronged and exploited. It isn’t even that men invented and have dominated the command and control of the movies, both as art and business: that they have been the majority of directors, producers and camera people despite, over the years, being a minority of the audience. Is what Vertigo has to tell us, beyond this history of male control, that the medium itself is in some sense male? Is there something in cinema that gives power to the predator, sitting still in the dark, watching forbidden things? More
Unhappy Ever After
A marriage that makes a good end to a comedy will often make as good a beginning to a tragedy. If any couple bore out that maxim it was Annabella Milbanke and George Gordon Byron. The ‘happy’ chapter lasted barely 24 hours, the ‘ever after’ is with us still. More
The Wrong Human Rights
Samuel Moyn wants to reinstate socialism – which was, after all, the ‘central language of justice’ globally before it was supplanted by human rights – as an ethical ideal and political objective. This may seem like a quixotic project. More
FROM THE LAST ISSUE
Andrew O’HaganThe Tower
At daybreak on 14 June 2017, a large, malodorous cloud hung over West London. You could see it for miles, acrid and acrimonious, the whole country waking up with a sense of disorder. And people required an answer. So we wiped their eyes and blamed the council. More
LATEST AUDIO AND VIDEO
VIDEO Grenfell: The End of an Experiment?
Anthony Wilks investigates the history of Kensington and Chelsea Council. Watch »
AUDIO The Tower
An audio version of Andrew O’Hagan’s piece on Grenfell Tower is available here. Listen »
