Martin In The Margins

It’s tempting to regard the atrocities committed by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as uniquely barbarous. I can't help thinking of the...

The BBC’s Hugh Schofield wonders why French books – and especially modern French novels – don’t sell abroad. This is in spite o...

This verdict had nothing to do with the actual evidence. It's all about  la faccia , face. They had to convict her. Now, with the convi...

Will be in this part of the world for a couple of weeks, with limited internet access, so the blog will be in recess until mid-August.

As promised, then, a brief account of our trip to Portugal. We were staying in the hills a few miles from Lisbon, within easy reach of the...

(Sintra, near Lisbon: view from the Palacio Nacional) I'm back, but rather travel-weary and preoccupied with matters domestic, so taking...

Our imminent departure for a couple of weeks' holiday not far from Lisbon provides me with an excuse to link to some of my past scribbli...

I loathe the niqab and the burqa and everything they represent. As Kenan Malik says : ‘The idea that in the 21st century women should be...

I've been brushing up my rusty and extremely rudimentary Portuguese, in anticipation of a visit this summer. My dedication to the task w...

Time to sign off for a few days, with a couple of pictorial reminders of places we've visited during the year. First, Val d'Orcia in...

That's the view put forward by columnists in The Times and The Guardian this week. According to Alex Wade, writing in the former: This...

Second historical quotation of the day. From what Oliver Kamm argues is 'the most significant document of the Enlightenment', the ...

I've been tagged quite a few times recently by my fellow-bloggers, so it's about time I issued a challenge of my own. It hasn't ...

We arrived back from Italy on Sunday night, after two gloriously hot weeks renewing our acquaintance with our favourite valley in southern T...

Tomorrow it will be 40 years since the iconic zebra crossing photo that adorns the cover of the Beatles’ Abbey Road was taken. As I write...