Mind & body.

Here we go again. We are headed for an epoch-making election with an opposition leader who has a horror of authenticity. We don't need atavastic politics, but it is a big danger that we have political stars whose charisma depends on being bland and controlling. Mr Cameron could do far better. Read more...

Is this the best eating in Paris? Quite possibly. Here's my case for L'Auberge Bressane, and the neighbourhood food shops, in the "toney" 7th arrondissement. It's all a demonstration of the homage affluence pays to authenticity.  Read more...

Most of the books on global warming science and policy are pretty muddled, hysterical or dreamy by turns. Very few have real quality. Mike Hulme's book, Why We Disagree About Climate Change seems to be in a different class. Read more...

It is just possible that Philip Blond and the Red Toryism of his ResPublica are the very fig-leaf a true-blue Conservative Party needs. It may be that David Cameron, beyond his bland rebranding of the Tories, is thinking along these lines.... Read more...

[The following blog - written in 2009 - still represents my views, but please also see a later blog of mine and its useful link to an Alzheimer's Society position paper on Contented Dementia, which I think states a very similar opinion but with far more authority. RDN, 30 July 2013] Oliver James has written some silly and poorly-argued books and it would have been nice if Contented Dementia, his new offering, was an exception. It isn't. Read more...

The late Dominick Dunne, novelist and chronicler of celebrity trials, was by parts Taki, Jennifer's Diary, The Sunday Times Insight team, Edith Wharton, Thackeray, and J J Hunsecker (of The Sweet Smell of Success). Read more...

Previously, I listed Karen Blixen's house outside Copenhagenand Kettle's Yard, Cambridge as my favourite interiors. Casting around for third, I wondered about including Charleston, the rustic Bloomsbury hangout. Now I have a better candidate: Matisse's chapel at Saint Paul de Vence. Read more...