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SubscriptionsSection: Culture
History, music, cooking, travel, books, theatre, film – but also with an eye on the ‘culture wars’, nationalism and identity.
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Immunology Pioneer’s Legacy Threatened by Coronavirus Lockdown
While the Jenner Institute is at the centre of the search for a COVID-19 vaccine, David Hencke explains how a museum dedicated to Edward Jenner is threatened because of the lockdown.
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The Year of Living Distantly: Lockdown Shadows of the Mind
Confined to a small urban apartment during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bonnie Greer reflects on her time in the Actors Studio, and how shaming memory brings self-knowledge.
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Odeon of Death Film of the Month: Caws
The Odeon of Death takes a look at events through the medium of cinema
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The Year of Living Distantly: Songs For the End of Silence
With the end of the COVID-19 lockdown being bruited loudly in the press, Graeme Thomson the idea that ‘silence is perfection’ and where we can still find it in great music.
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CORONAVIRUS CRISIS: Government Suspends Key Protections for Children with Special Educational Needs
Stephen Unwin explains the personal impact of COVID-19 emergency ‘reasonable endeavours’ policy on his severely learning disabled son.
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VE DAY COMMEMORATION: Shots in the Dark – A Night in Umbria
As Britain prepares to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Allied victory in Europe, Otto English cuts through the myths with his father’s first-hand account of war.
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THE UPSIDE DOWN: Keep Clean and Carry On
John Mitchinson explores how pandemics can have odd and unexpected consequences and ponders what the new ‘normal’ will be post-COVID-19
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The Year of Living Distantly: The Architecture of a Post-Viral Society
If you want to know how to deal with social isolation and limited horizons, there are experts already among us explains Vida Adamczewski.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: ‘Following the Science?’ – Boris Johnson and his Government Should Look in the Mirror
The Secret Scientist starts her new insider series for Byline Times by reminding us that there is not just ‘one science’, and its validity rests on constant probing and peer review.
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The Year of Living Distantly: Paranoia in Cornwall
Alex Wade on how his plans to move abroad were stymied by the pandemic, and how an abandoned cottage and a missing book delivery revealed the rupture in time.
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Why Every Zombie Apocalypse Movie Was Wrong
In light of the realities of COVID-19, Peter Jukes explores what our myths about pandemics and alien invasions told us about sorry selves.
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Could COVID-19 Bring with it a New Inclusive Englishness?
Former MP John Denham considers the return of the nation state, British myths and how the Coronavirus crisis could help forge a new national story for England.
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The Emptiness of Trump’s Relentless Pursuit of Beauty
Bonnie Greer explores what is driving the US President in his quest to create the world around him in his vision.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: Will Our COVID-19 Lockdown Make Us think More About Why We Imprison So Many People?
Duncan Campbell discusses how the words ‘lockdown’ and ‘stir-crazy” were an all too familiar reality for a section of our society long before the Coronavirus pandemic appeared.
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Disappearing Cities: Soho — Gangsters, artists, brothels and landlords
Chris Sullivan, the founder of the famous Wag Club, looks at the history of London’s Soho district and how greed and acquisition replaced art and conviviality.
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Hymns to the Silence: Music and Solace in a Time of Crisis
The composer Howard Goodall looks at how music has helped to express, escape and mourn previous traumas, and provides his own playlist to pass the pandemic.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: It Was There For All to See in the £20 Notes – Wasn’t it?
Otto English explains how nations that start by normalising conspiracy theories end up having their phone masts burned down
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The Ungrateful Country
First published in 2016 in The Good Immigrant, a book bringing together writers exploring what it means to be black, Asian and minority ethnic today, in this essay, Musa Okwonga explores his complex relationship with Britain – and himself.
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Five Weeks of Italian Lockdown: Welcome to Your Future
As Italy enters the fifth week of lockdown, Kamin Mohammadi gives the rest of the world some insights into what happens next.
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The Year of Living Distantly: We Were Boxed In Before Lockdown
Byline Times’ Editor Hardeep Matharu reflects on some of the profound questions raised by the Coronavirus pandemic and how we have been living our lives.
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From Hot Florida to a Frozen Canada: A Coronavirus Odyssey
Chris Blask narrates an epic transcontinental journey with his family, a Labrador, Turtle and a Parakeet in the face of the COVID-19 Pandemic
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Hope for Jewish Remainers: A Portuguese Passport
Blaise Baquiche explains his unusual route to regaining EU citizenship, through a ‘law of return’ in reparation for the horrors of the Inquisition.
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Odeon Of Death Film of the Month: Planet of the Goats
The Odeon of Death takes a look at the month’s events through the medium of cinema.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: Disinformation Rings True As Our Pandemic of Untruth Continues
Musa Okwonga explores why conspiracy theories are finding such an audience and what this exposes about the worrying state of our democracy and the social contract.
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THE UPSIDE DOWN: The Eloquence of Saying Nothing
John Mitchinson explores how being quiet and listening might help us to adjust to the isolation imposed on us by the Coronavirus – and beyond.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: Apart From That
Otto English explores, well, that thing. The thing we can’t forget. The thing that’s everywhere, inside and out.
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Social Distancing With Scarlet Fever: COVID-19 Brings Back Memories of my Mother’s Childhood Isolation in a Fever Hospital
Stephen Colegrave gains new insight into his mother’s diaries about her time in isolation with Scarlet fever during her wartime evacuation in Scotland.
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Why Fortress Europe and the European Union Can’t Coexist
Joey Ayoub explores a big dilemma facing the EU, involving a desire to dissolve borders within while promoting them without.
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Love in a Time of Lockdown: How the Coronavirus is Adapting Dating Habits
What is social distancing doing to all those hook-up apps and sites? Douglas Whitbread reports on how new-found values of Platonic love and friendship are dominating.
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Art in the Coronavirus Crisis: When the Cows Come Home
Otto English is given exclusive access to an innovative new project to celebrate the best of British talent.
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Lockdown with Chris Sullivan: Volume One
Looking for an album, film or book to make our new Coronavirus reality more bearable? Why not start here…
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The Year of Living Distantly: The Cost of Love
John Lubbock describes his enforced separation from his wife during the COVID-19 pandemic, which he believes lays bare once more the hostile environment the UK has cultivated.
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The UPSIDE DOWN: This Too Shall Pass – What Defoe’s Plague Journal Can Still Teach Us
As the Coronavirus pandemic changes all of our lives, John Mitchinson reflects on how the observations of humanity revealed in such moments of crisis transcend time and place.
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The Year of Living Distantly: A Dark Relishing
Conrad Egbert provides his insights on dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak from Copenhagen.
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The Fantasies of Video Game Cities Can’t Escape Real Social Contradictions
Jon Bailes looks at why even video games – as fantasies – can’t seem to consciously address the antagonisms of our political, economic and social lives.
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The Year of Living Distantly: The Stuff that Happens Somewhere Else
Christina Patterson explores how she is coming to terms with our terrible new reality – and the snatches of beauty within it.
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Postcards from the Red Wall: A Town with Contradictions
Graham Williamson visits Doncaster, which voted to Leave the EU by 69% in 2016, and welcomed a Conservative MP to one of its constituencies in the 2019 General Election.
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The Year of Living Distantly: The Empty Hours
Chris Keulemans reflects on what living with the Coronavirus might teach us about the kind of life we really want.
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The Year of Living Distantly: A Letter to My Mum
Otto English pens some thoughts to his 89-year-old mother, who he visited this week in the Coronavirus chaos.
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The Herd Instinct and ‘Herd Immunity’: The Etiology of a Bad Idea
The science didn’t change – the politics did. Peter Jukes follows an inflammatory and disastrous theory as it spread rapidly through the British body politic.
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THE UPSIDE DOWN: Raising Hell – The Long Afterlife of William Blake
John Mitchinson explores the lasting resonance of the works of the English poet and artist who attracted little acclaim during his lifetime.
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‘Misbehaviour’ Misses the Mark
Chris Sullivan reviews a new take on the 1970 Miss World pageant and explores the debate about sex and race which it exposed.
