South West Londoner • 10th October 2025

J. M. W. Turner’s south-west London childhood home honoured with blue plaque on painter’s 250th anniversary

A Brentford pub where the landscape artist J. M. W. Turner once lived and received his first commission has been honoured with a blue plaque, unveiled 250 years after his birth.


The Weir Pub has received a boost in visitors after their unveiling ceremony on 4 September, which was attended by guests including the Mayor of Brentford.


Turner, who features on the £20 note and is considered one of Britain’s most influential painters, lived and worked across the Thames valley in South West Londo...

Financial Times • 2nd October 2025

Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2025 shortlist — from terrorism to Tennyson

The lives and minds of writers are at the forefront of this year’s Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction shortlist, which also offers accounts of the rise of modern terrorism, the story of slavery in the Ottoman Empire and the pilgrimage of a lone wolf across the faultlines of Europe.

The Times • 1st October 2025

Do any young women ever feel safe on the Tube? I know I don’t

Groped, verbally harassed, called a ‘stuck-up bitch’ — it shouldn’t be like this

The Times • 30th September 2025

Interview: We’re Americans. Here’s why we’ve come to British universities

Polarised politics and the punitive cost of tuition are driving record numbers of US students to the UK

The New World • 5th September 2025

Taylor Swift: the capitalist juggernaut

It amassed more than 14m likes in the first hour, 1m reposts in less than six, and dominated front pages and breaking news alerts across the globe. The following day, as the US president gave a press conference on serious matters of war, he was asked about it. And he answered with as much sincerity as Donald Trump could be expected to muster. I am of course talking about the earth-shattering news that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are getting married. The world record-breaking Instagram post fea...

The New World • 26th August 2025

The great university rip-off

Another read: “Starting to think the troops who left school early and went straight into the trades r [sic] the real winners. A skill set and a job for life that they didn’t put themselves into debt for” read another. Scroll through TikTok and it doesn’t take long to find graduates venting their frustration. “I have applied to 65 jobs since graduating and only had 2 interviews! I have a first-class honours degree, have completed 3 internships, and have been working since I was 14. WHAT. AM. I. D...

The New World • 20th June 2025

Gen-Z want to 'rot' at home. What's wrong with that?

That’s the sum total of the lives of Chinese “rat people”: self-christened Gen Z societal dropouts, who on social media platforms like Weibo and Rednote try to ironically one‑up each other with their feats of inertia. Imagine something along the lines of “You doom scroll from the couch? Tryhard, I haven’t left my bed in days”.Wake up at midday, doom scroll on the sofa all afternoon, eat a vaguely warm takeaway, then go back to bed. The term went viral after a video from a 20-something woman from...

The New World • 11th June 2025

Gen Z, the scared generation

Call it a twisted thrill from playing the role of a disapproving Gen Z whisperer, sharing tales of our idiosyncrasies: like the ones who use ChatGPT as a personal therapist; the viral “office siren” fashion trend among students who dress as if they are on their way to the office even though they’ve never seen one; and the fact that you’re more likely to see twenty somethings on the streets at 5am because they’re training for a marathon rather than returning home from a big night out. Forgive me...