Our ten favorite European trains don’t necessarily offer the fastest journeys—just the most memorable. All aboard! Much of European train travel is about efficiency and comfort—punctually leaving and arriving and having a cozy seat or sleeper compartment in which to devour the latest issue of the Economist. But rail travel in the United Kingdom and on the Continent is also about experience: gaping out the window at Alpine glaciers, savoring […]
Nearly 50 years ago British MP Enoch Powell gave one of the most racist and controversial speeches in British political history. “Rivers of Blood”, as it came to be known, was a tirade against Indians and Africans coming to work and settle in Britain. To him it was “literally mad” that the country was allowing them in. “It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own […]
Justin Trudeau hasn’t been alone as his star rises in the political world — whether visiting China’s Great Wall, dining at the White House or marching in Toronto’s gay pride parade, he’s often joined by his family who have helped cement his reputation as a down-to-earth everyman. Upon taking office one year ago, the prime minister set the tone: Although he’s Canada’s leader, he’s also a father with a young […]
In today’s high-speed, ever-connected times, being “busy” is one of the most valued social currencies. If we’re busy, then surely we must be important, successful, valuable and living full lives. So “busy” becomes a proxy for inflating our egos, both for ourselves and for those around us. It’s because of this that being too busy to do something becomes such a valid excuse for not getting things done. In using […]
On a Tuesday in mid-October, the most expensive map ever to hit the market was sitting on the floor of an empty office on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Daniel Crouch, the rare book and map dealer to whom it had been consigned, stood over it, beaming. “I’ve handled several [similar] maps in my life,” said Crouch. “But never one so gleamingly brilliant as this.” The map, which was created by […]
Us music icon Bob Dylan stunned the entire world on Thursday as he bagged the Nobel Literature Prize 2016. You will be amazed to know that the 75-year-old legend has now become the first songwriter to win the prestigious honour. Bob was awarded ‘for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’. With this, he also takes home the eight million kronor ($906,000 or 822,000 euros) prize […]
Pictures taken on Norfolk beach capture a body with human-like features Mystery find at Great Yarmouth has the skull of a man but the tail of a fish Debate rages online over possible explanations for the eerie discovery A man claims to have found a mermaid washed up on a windswept Norfolk beach. If it’s true, she had deserted warm tropical waters to swim among the oil rigs, fishing trawlers, […]
With Inferno releasing in India on 14 October — a whole two weeks before it is scheduled to open in theatres in the US — a special ‘India exclusive’ trailer has been unveiled by Sony Pictures on YouTube for audiences here. The trailer, that features all the principal actors — Tom Hanks, Irrfan Khan and Felicity Jones — clocks in at just under a minute-and-a-half but teases some of Inferno’s […]
Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy is to publish her second novel – 20 years after her bestseller The God of Small Things came out. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness will be published in June 2017. “I am glad to report that the mad souls (even the wicked ones) in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness have found a way into the world,” Roy said. She has written a wide range of […]
It’s less than two months to go for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the Harry Potter spinoff no one believed they’d ever get. And now, we’ve got what they’re calling a ‘full-length’ trailer. Remember the good old days when trailers used to come with easy to understand numbers attached to them? But now, they’re given fancy titles. And since this one is called a ‘full-length’ trailer, as opposed […]
