How the modern world is changing grave stone design forever April 10, 2025 Death is the only thing surer than taxes. But how we’re remembered is a strange and sometimes controversial business. Ralph Jones meets the people rewriting the rules, one grave stone at a time Stonemason Neil Luxton once agreed to use comic sans on a grave. Once was enough – he has refused ever since. Luxton, [...]
Life on the edge: A deep dive into the crazy world of Margate April 10, 2025 Five years ago, some dilapidated public urinals in a park in Margate were sold at auction by the council to a private bidder for £11,000. The shabby little structure is barely visible from the path, a graffitied block hidden behind shrubs with weeds winding through the roof and floor. The original glazed urinals are exposed [...]
It takes a village: Do we need to rethink our attitude to old age? April 10, 2025 We’re living for longer than ever but the boom in the elderly population is a social and political time-bomb. Could ‘later life’ communities like Auriens be the answer to the old age crisis, asks Steve Dinneen I enter a grand lobby, all lofty ceilings, marquetry floors and art deco fittings. An effusive concierge in a natty [...]
What does Raoul Moat play Manhunt say about men in 2025? April 9, 2025 Angry, isolated and dangerous men are very much in the cultural zeitgeist and, in Raoul Moat, visionary writer-director Robert Icke has chosen one of the angriest, most isolated and demonstrably dangerous men in recent memory as the subject of his new play. Manhunt – very loosely based on the 2016 true crime book You Could [...]
Aboard the real Orient Express train from Europe to the East April 9, 2025 It has always irked me that trains billed as the Orient Express, like the Venice-Simplon-Orient-Express, only go as far as Istanbul. Why evoke the romance of the Orient only to end the journey at the edge of Europe? It’s a disappointment, but more gallingly for anyone passionate about long-distance train travel, it’s also a missed [...]
The White Lotus Season 3 finale sucked: Here’s why April 8, 2025 The White Lotus Season 3 is over. In this spoiler-heavy take, Steve Dinneen laments an ending that went awry. The final episode of The White Lotus Season 3 pulled off the dubious trick of ending with both a bang and a whimper. It’s been a rollercoaster: the season opened to a fairly tepid reaction – [...]
I found my private pictures on a foot fetish website… And a theatre celeb’s April 7, 2025 Playwright Naomi Westerman found her private photos on a foot fetish website. Then she found pictures of the most powerful man in theatre… I have no idea how a celebrity foot fetish website found my personal Instagram. Somehow a bunch of random snapshots in which I happen to be shoeless did it for some people. Not [...]
Olivier Awards winner Layton Williams on life after Titanique: ‘I want to be a Strictly Come Dancing judge!’ April 7, 2025 Olivier Awards 2025 winner Layton Williams tells City AM The Magazine about the ridiculousness of being nominated for playing a lump of ice, how he can’t slay everyday now he’s 30, and his hopes to return to Strictly Come Dancing, but this time on the judging panel “I would hope the 20 years I’ve been [...]
Is real-life Severance here? Inside the offices microchipping employees April 4, 2025 Is real life Severance already here? Anna Moloney talks to the companies using human microchips in the pursuit of productivity.
Eating Dave’s Hot Chicken Reaper Tenders: Why do we love spicy food? March 27, 2025 I feel lightheaded, short of breath and the room has started to spin. Intense waves of heat radiate from my mouth throughout my entire body. The pain is searing, like someone is holding an open flame to my tongue. After a couple of bites my throat starts to swell, my lips are raw, my face has [...]