The Critic Magazine (UK)

People who pave over gardens have hearts of stone I’m sure we all play the “when I’m supreme ruler” game. In my version, anyone who ripped up a front garden to park a car would be summarily executed. Not because I dislike cars or motorists, but because anyone who voluntarily replaces a flowerbed with a Nissan Qashqai clearly lacks a soul, and deserves to be entombed under the tarmac of their own front drives. I am not a monster.

★★★★ Ordered to mourn a popular queen, George Frideric Handel raided his own scores for reusable tunes. He was commissioned on December 5, 1737 for a funeral on the 12th — a week to compose 40 minutes of music with texts of his own choosing. This was not a negotiable deadline. He furnished the opening lamentations — “The ways of Zion do mourn” and “How are the mighty fall’n” with music from his Chandos Anthems and some older occasional pieces, slowed down for solemnity.

Spain and Argentina’s complex relationship is being strained by the World Cup “The motherland loves you, loves to beat you.” These were the words of Spain’s most famous football presenter to Argentina after the two World Cup finalists were confirmed. Lionel Messi’s countrymen were quick to reject this paternalism — but the very fact that it was expressed says much about Spain’s relationship with its former colony.

An attempt to achieve historical accountability ends up being an exercise in historical obscurantism Dyrham Park carried the aura of an elegant stately home — all gilt and hush. One room in particular leaned into that grandeur, with deep red damask walls rising to a high white cornice, two crystal chandeliers catching the light, oak wall panelling below, and a heavy marble fireplace anchoring one end.

This article is taken from the June 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Find our subscription offers here. For all the imagery of England as a garden, the country’s patterns of culture, education, invention, innovation, manufacturing and trade have been primarily urban for centuries. As early as the 1th century, around ten per cent of the population probably lived in towns.

This article is taken from the June 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Find our subscription offers here. I do enjoy a well executed counterfactual or “alt” history television drama. Thus far, nothing has topped The Man in the High Castle, based on Philip K. Dick’s novel set in a post-war United States occupied by Japan and Nazi Germany. Apple TV’s Star City is definitely strong competition.

This article is taken from the July 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Find our subscription offers here. Artist Lorna May Wadsworth has, over the years, spent a surprising amount of time listening to other people’s stories about Margaret Thatcher. Wadsworth’s London studio is a bright, airy room, with views skimming the treetops of Hackney.

This article is taken from the June 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Find our subscription offers here. There isn’t much that Francis Young doesn’t know about fairies. He can describe the mecan izhandaizhed and mecan emagaizhed, the masters and mistresses of the forest of the Finno-Ugric Vepsian people of Russia. He can recount tales of the ljúflingar (“sweet ones’) described in 1637 by Bishop Gísli Oddson of Skálholt in Iceland.

Deporting the grooming gang leader, while just, will not solve our problems A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan has given the country’s first official public statement regarding the status of Shabir Ahmed, a ringleader of the rape gangs in Rochdale.

The role offers too much power with too little accountability Sir Olly Robbins is trying to take a lawyer to court. Backed by the senior civil servants’ union, the former Foreign Office Permanent Secretary is seeking a judicial review of Keir Starmer’s decision to dismiss him for overruling official advice to deny Peter Mandelson security clearance. No matter how much schadenfreude we might derive from seeing Starmer hauled over the coals, Robbins ought to maintain a dignified silence.