Month: April 2019

In February 1719, two months before the publication of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe proposed in the Weekly Journal that the South Sea Company – founded just eight years earlier to manage the national debt and awarded a contract to supply the Spanish colonies in Latin America with several thousand African slaves per year – should…

One of four women who was recently subjected to a brutal public lashing by armed Taliban fighters in Afghanistan has spoken about her experience, amid an increase of violent punishments given to those violating its strict interpretation of religious law. Aziza, who like many other Afghan women only uses one name, was rounded up by…

Three women in Malaysia who held an event discussing their decision to stop wearing the hijab are being investigated by Malaysian Islamic authorities. The event, hosted over the weekend at the Gerakbudaya bookshop in the Petaling Jaya area, was held to mark the launch of Unveiling Choice, a book documenting the author and activist Maryam…

For a saga that’s made a lot of capital out of people dying over the past four decades, it was somewhat surprising to hear Luke Skywalker reveal to the assembled Jedi masses that “no one’s ever really gone” in the debut trailer for The Rise of Skywalker. However, Star Wars has dropped more than a…

This year’s Cannes selection was unveiled under a revered image, almost a tutelary deity. The poster shows the 26-year-old Agnès Varda standing on the shoulders of a male technician, shooting her first feature La Pointe Courte. Some may feel that this is where the gender revolution begins and ends in Cannes: there are still just…

Facebook has admitted to “unintentionally” uploading the address books of 1.5 million users without consent, and says it will delete the collected data and notify those affected. The discovery follows criticism of Facebook by security experts for a feature that asked new users for their email password as part of the sign-up process. As well…

Climate change, I was told when buying a coffee, is not a “polite” topic of conversation in Natchez, Mississippi. The city sits on the legendarily volatile Mississippi River, which is straining against an aging system of levees. Considered the oldest permanent settlement on the Mississippi, Natchez is perched on a bluff over the river’s eastern…

Let’s revisit history for a minute and pretend that Jean Genet, Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh and their ilk had been #blessed with the ability to share #dailyinspo with their presumably voracious online fans. Would Claude Monet have uploaded #wanderlust shots of the landscapes he was busy abstracting with his dappled brushstrokes? Would users have…

Who are the worst three people in the world? Back in the mid-to-late-1960s, you had quite a few to choose from. However, when Lou Reed picked his trio there was, really, only one name on the list. “The three worst people in the world,” said Reed back in 1967, “are Nat Finkelstein and two speed…

A coroner has issued a warning about mixing alcohol and cocaine after the Love Island contestant Sophie Gradon killed herself after consuming both substances. The 32-year-old was found hanged at her home in Ponteland, Northumberland, by her boyfriend and his brother in June, an inquest in North Tyneside heard on Thursday. The coroner Eric Armstrong…