Category Archives: Culture

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – May 15, 2024

May 14, 2024 Intellicurious Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine (May 14, 2024): The latest issue features…

The year of the tree

This year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show is poised to celebrate the unfolding freshness and energy of deciduous woods in May, as Kathryn Bradley-Hole discovers

Beneath the boughs

Garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith is returning to Chelsea’s Main Avenue for the first time in 14 years for the National Garden Scheme, reveals Joanna Fortnam

‘When the ass begins to bray, surely rain will come that day’

It’s raining ancient folklore and proverbs as John Lewis-Stempel relies on jumping trout, croaking frogs and chirping crickets to predict the great British weather

My art is in the garden

Carla Passino examines how the brushstrokes of Monet, Turner, Klimt and Canaletto are providing colour and inspiration at Chelsea

All I need is the air that I breathe

Cathryn Spence airs the story of how—250 years ago—Joseph Priestley ‘discovered’ oxygen at Bowood House in Wiltshire

Cindy Sughrue’s favourite painting

The director of London’s Charles Dickens Museum picks a classic snapshot of the capital’s skyline

The legacy

Bess of Hardwick was the first of many influential Chatsworth women, as Kate Green learns

A timeless view

George Plumptre admires the simple beauty of the gardens at Pusey House in Oxfordshire

Seating plans

What makes a comfortable garden seat, asks Tiffany Daneff

Sitting pretty

Amelia Thorpe seeks out crafted benches to suit every garden

The cutting-garden diaries

In the final part of her series, Anna Brown is focused on harvesting

A lily among weeds

Clive Aslet lauds the enduring influence of the prolific Victorian architect George Edmund Street

Slugging it out

Marianne Taylor is captivated by the curious beauty of molluscs

Mane stay

Deborah Nash visits the last British firm creating horsehair fabric

Out and About

The Royal Countryside Fund reception at Fortnum & Mason

Interiors

Amelia Thorpe takes a look at six of the best WOW!house creations

A brush with sparkles

Hetty Lintell is wowed by jewels celebrating the National Gallery

Kitchen garden cook

The arrival of new-season carrots is applauded by Melanie Johnson

Native herbs

John Wright is playing with fire as he investigates horseradish

Sweet chamomile, good times never seemed so good

Deborah Nicholls-Lee dreams of dainty white flowers and a fragrant lawn that never needs mowing

Falstaff reimagined

Sir Ian McKellen lends a ‘silvering dignity’ to Shakespeare’s famed roisterer, finds Michael Billington

Arts & Literature, Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – May 20, 2024

May 13, 2024 Intellicurious Leave a comment

Students are escorted by police as they cross a graduation stage to accept their diplomas.

The New Yorker (May 13, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Barry Blitt’s “Class of 2024” – The campus tensions take center stage.

An Israeli Newspaper Presents Truths Readers May Prefer to Avoid

Haaretz consistently attempts to wrestle with the realities of what is going on in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.

By David Remnick

A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It?

Colleagues reportedly called Lucy Letby an “angel of death,” and the Prime Minister condemned her. But, in the rush to judgment, serious questions about the evidence were ignored.

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Previews, Reviews, Society

The New York Times Magazine – May 12, 2024

May 11, 2024 Intellicurious Leave a comment

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (May 11, 2024): The ‘Retirement Issue’ features…

These Couples Survived a Lot. Then Came Retirement.

Yvonne McCracken stands behind Richard McCracken while he stares at a computer. Pretzel crumbs are scattered across some papers on the table.

For many relationships, life after work brings an unexpected set of challenges.

By Susan Dominus

This spring, Barbara and Joe, a retired couple in their 60s, sat down with me at a bistro in suburban Connecticut to talk about their relationship. That they were sitting there together at all was something of a triumph. In the past few days, they had hurled at each other the kinds of accusations that couples make when they are on the brink of mutual destruction. They were bruised from the words that had been exchanged, and although they sat close to each other, their energy was quiet and heavy.

How to Make Retirement Less Scary

A Times financial columnist and an illustrator share an exercise that can prepare you for life after work.

By Ron Lieb

Culture, Magazines, Politics, Previews, Reviews, Society

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – May 10, 2024

May 8, 2024 Intellicurious Leave a comment

The Guardian Weekly (May 8, 2024) – The new issue features ‘Nowhere to call home’ – Inside Europe’s housing crisis…

Elections for the European parliament are less than a month away and far-right parties are predicted to make significant gains in many of the bloc’s 27 member states. The dire shortage of housing, leading to rising rents and property prices, is becoming a unifying focus for voters’ discontent with their current political leaders.

The issue has sparked protests from Amsterdam to Prague and Milan, as the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, reports. The data is undeniably worrying as young Europeans spend up to 10 times an average salary on rent and mortgage payments, and big cities from the Baltic states to the Iberian peninsula have registered average property price rises of close to 50%. As a result more EU residents live with their parents for longer and put off life-decisions later into adulthood.

While housing does not fall within MEPs’ remit, it is a visible locus for the sense of social unease that has beset the whole bloc and has become a pivot for the far right to turn on racialised minorities. But as European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam discovers, it is those communities that are doubly penalised through discrimination from landlords who, research has shown, turn away potential renters with “foreign” surnames. The political and social ramifications of the housing crisis in Europe is mirrored elsewhere across the globe and is a subject we will return to in the Guardian Weekly in this year of elections.

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews