Culture

Smoking and drinking might be bad for the health, but sitting around with people who see the world differently can have profoundly beneficial effects

How a genuinely old dialect word became part of a made-up East Anglian pub game

A narcissistic trend is teaching young men the worst lesson women were ever taught: your appearance is everything

Digging into the detail and data to separate the noise from the news

How a Greek word for sanctuary became one of the most contested terms in modern English

How the widow of Martin Luther King Jr transformed mourning into a lifelong movement

Digging into the detail and data to separate the noise from the news

One guilty purchase was all it took for the algorithm to start stalking me

The veteran presenter of the BBC Radio 4 show, which I co-created, is a tough act to follow, but Misha Glenny seems equal to the task

Despite its strong association with US sport and policing, the term ‘rookie’ has a complicated history

Some familiar words we use in everyday English carry surprising traces of Malay, a language spoken widely across south-east Asia

Being constantly reachable fuels our self-importance. But there is a better way

It is the second most-spoken first language in the world, and opens doors across continents and careers – yet British schools still insist on teaching French

The social contract must be revitalised or populists will replace it with something much worse. That means citizenship should involve allegiance to a shared way of life

Digging into the detail and data to separate the noise from the news

It predicts the universe with eerie precision, yet not even Nobel laureates can agree on how to interpret it

Promises to ourselves have a superficially similar structure to promises to other people – but with a kind of double lock

To survive the club culture of Buenos Aires, you need stamina and a willingness to let go of British ideas about bedtime

Digging into the detail and data to separate the noise from the news

Digging into the detail and data to separate the noise from the news

Flags waved, Trump ranted and raved, an ex-royal was depraved and the PM looked like he couldn’t be saved. It’s been one hell of a year

This Polish-Mexican bistro is a mismatch that probably shouldn’t work. But it absolutely does, and there is nowhere like it in Britain, maybe even the world

Rock Against Racism’s joyous free concerts beat back the far right in 1970s Britain. That defiant blend of politics and music remains an inspiration – but its playbook may be obsolete

Digging into the detail and data to separate the noise from the news

Digging into the detail and data to separate the noise from the news

Populists have some very strange ideas about London. The best way to get over their irrational fears is to pay the capital a visit

Happy-clappy beige influencers are everywhere now, encouraging us to stay away from anything that makes life worth living

Just an hour across the water is a city with a completely different history and culture. But how much longer can it last?

From San Sebastian to Copenhagen, one train ticket allows travel in 33 countries, for all age groups. But don’t dare think that you can just hop on, hop off

Digging into the detail and data to separate the noise from the news

In the capital city’s abandoned temples and underpasses, Taiwan’s youth are reclaiming their space – and culture

The country’s food scene is generally underwhelming – but a city on the Caribbean coast is a vibrant hub of innovation and local pride