MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Distant socialising
Among other things, writer JAN WOOLF reflects on statistics as an anaesthetic, disinfectant as the only Covid joke in town and how 'normal' has become a contentious word
CHANNELLING VERA LYNN: The Rolling Stones
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
IDEALLY THIS POSTER WOULD SHOW YOU THE WAY — spotted on London Underground before lockdown. An image that says it all. Well, if not all, quite a lot in an ideal world.
Much of the news this week has been delivered through the anaesthetising mutations of statistics, as if in lockdown we can do the rapid calculations required to know if we, or those close to us, are at risk.
Have you ever met anyone who is statistically suffering? Or is comforted by a set of figures?
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