TV

From the First World War to the rise of radical Islam, catastrophes cannot be treated like ordinary problems

This year I stuck to what remains my greatest discovery: go on holiday in January. Having been mulling on empires past and present, I headed to Vienna, spending a week among the buildings, collections and other remains of the Habsburg Empire. I finished the week in the imperial family crypt. The public entrance to the Kaisergruft feels uncomfortably like that of an underground car-park. But then there they all are — casket after casket and row upon row of Habsburgs.

Sherlock substitutes the jitters of the internet for the storytelling that made the world fall in love with Holmes

The establishment hid Cyril Smith’s crimes. Imagine what they will do when the press is state-regulated

Jacques Peretti’s BBC documentary exposes the diet industry but he misses the elephant in the room

British television today is rubbish. But boxed sets — especially those dramas from America — are like bottles of fine wine, waiting to be consumed at the perfect moment

The fact that most of today’s comedians are left-wing isn’t necessarily the reason they aren’t funny. It’s because they aren’t very bright

The Right accuses BBC comedy of bias, but today’s left-wing comedians are conservative in all but name