How delicious that Damien Hirst has cleaned up even as the media tell us that it’s all up for over-weaning capitalist thugs – his customers. What’s truly miraculous is that the art magnate and entrepreneur manages to come across as cheerfully demotic and populist as he rakes in the lucre. What we sense, of course, is that Hirst’s work is an essay in shock-value. He plays games with what offends us and the value we will place on things. Skulls and diamonds, and stuffed calves and gold leaf, are the ideal art objects for a period of capitalist hiatus. These bad times are perfect times for Hirst’s art and its value. Read more ›

Evan Davis, BBC Radio 4′s new hip voice of reason, has been introducing slugs of writing about money crises for BBC Radio 4′s latest book – in this case, “books” – of the week. There is a mistake (a category error) lurking in his efforts. The show confuses different sorts of crisis in quite an important way. Read more ›

I am such a cowardly and careless yachtsman – and so prone to panic – that I am a little nervous about seeming to criticise the crew of The Ouzo, a small sailing yacht which vanished with all hands on a night passage off the Isle of Wight in August 2006. It was an intensely dramatic story. I have been revved-up by a very good piece in the FT Saturday magazine. It seems a tad timid. Read more ›