History
He did not look like a conqueror. Instead, he resembled a cautious administrator who worried about drafts and damp air. Yet Octavian Augustus transformed…
8 min read
Food
Cinnamon sits in the kitchen cupboard pretending to be innocent. A pinch goes into porridge, apple crumble, mulled wine, coffee, buns, biscuits and anything…
7 min read
People
Hannibal Barca is one of those historical figures who sounds as if he escaped from a slightly overexcited screenplay. A Carthaginian general, raised in…
7 min read
Culture
Dionysus was the Greek god of wine, which sounds wonderfully simple until you spend five minutes with him. Then you realise wine was only…
6 min read
History
Mumbai has never been a straightforward city. It began as a group of low-lying islands on the Arabian Sea, home to Koli fishing communities…
7 min read
History
King Charles I had the kind of face that seemed designed for oil paint. In Van Dyck’s portraits, he looks elegant, remote and almost…
8 min read
Britain
Parliamentary whips sound as if they belong in a dusty constitutional footnote, or perhaps in a Victorian melodrama involving wigs, corridors and someone whispering…
5 min read
History
Tenochtitlan began with water. Not the cinematic kind with slow motion and violins. More the steady, practical sound of canoes brushing past reed edges,…
9 min read
