There’s nothing that epitomises the attitudes of pre-Revolutionary France quite like the job of executioner. The men in this job served the royal will, dealing out death and torture as decreed by the upper classes. Officially they were…

Can videogames be art? It seems like ten years ago that was all that you needed to say online in order to kick off an instant argument, one which usually broke down into a debate over the definition of “art”. Nowadays it’s generally agreed…

“Journalism”, as a concept, is an entirely new development of the last several centuries. Before the printing press led to mass literacy and the desire for “news”, there was no need for people to go and find it out. Over time it evolved,…

We live in an increasingly interconnected world. A friend may live on the other side of the planet, and yet their words appear on your computer screen to tell you how their day is going. You can pick up your phone and chat to people on…

Lives are rarely defined by a single event, but memories of them often are. Margaret Brown was a woman who became best known as “the Unsinkable Molly Brown”, after she was one of the most high-profile survivors of the Titanic disaster. In…

If I have a favourite type of film, it’s the ones that have the taste of dreams about them. Where emotions drape across your mind like cobwebs and where the rules of logic are not suspended but rather seem to float out of reach, somehow…

I first saw Army of Darkness as a teenager on a VHS rented from Xtravision, and I’m not exaggerating to say that I thought it was the greatest movie ever. I was a traditionally geeky fantasy-obsessed kid, and the combination of cool witty…

Freedom is a strange thing. Those of us born into it take it for granted. But for those born into slavery freedom is something they would never undervalue. Being a slave is bad enough, but worse is for a slave to see their child born into…

The history of England’s flirtation with fascism before World War 2 is a fascinating one. The philosophy of absolute authority had a great draw for an aristocratic upper-class who had seen their grip on authority gradually loosen over the…

There’s a thin line between lying and creating, sometimes. Is the forger who creates new paintings in the style of the old masters any less of an artist than they were? His work is skillful, his subjects original, though he may match their…