New Statesman

The Hearing Voices Movement is reshaping our understanding of hallucination — and what it means to be “mad.”

“Acts of courage in the age of Covid-19.”

English universities appear to have done the impossible: attracting increasing numbers of students and graduating them with high scores. Unfortunately, lower academic standards and grade inflation are responsible for England’s so-called education miracle. Instead of selling academic rigor, universities sell degrees, and that’s what students come to buy.

A Reddit money pool — where anyone can sign up for a chance to win a few thousand dollars (and maybe even some bitcoin) — is testing the limits of online honor codes.

“It can be hard to fill the hours, so I try to make a mark every day.” Ralph Steadman, the Welsh artist best known for his political cartoons and collaborations with Hunter S. Thompson, continues to make art that makes a statement.

What does “remembering” mean in an age where human memory is outsourced to gadgets and social networks?

In 1987, Terence Trent D’Arby’s debut album sold a million copies in just three days, and the music press went crazy for him. There was nowhere to go but down.

What does the rise of food banks tell us about Britain today?

There is a constant stream of data, images and videos coming in from conflict regions across the globe—in our ever-connected world anyone with an internet connection can be a war reporter. And there is power in numbers.

Humor in Ancient Rome could be a matter of life and death, at least when an emperor was involved.

Laughter and joking were just as high-stakes for ancient Roman emperors as they are for modern royalty and politicians. It has always been bad for your public image to laugh in the wrong way or to crack jokes about the wrong targets. The Duke of Edinburgh got into trouble with his (to say the least) ill-judged “slitty-eyed” quip, just as Tony Abbott recently lost votes after being caught smirking about the grandmother who said she made ends meet by working on a telephone sex line. For the Romans, blindness – not to mention threats of murder – was a definite no-go area for joking, though they treated baldness as fair game for a laugh (Julius Caesar was often ribbed by his rivals for trying to conceal his bald patch by brushing his hair forward, or wearing a strategically placed laurel wreath). Politicians must always manage their chuckles, chortles, grins and banter with care.