The nameless crime
This is not a Netflix show. On 24 April, 15-year-old Lorène was stabbed 57 times in her classroom in Nantes by 16-year-old Justin P., and died. Her killer then proceeded to another classroom, where he stabbed three more students, leaving one critically injured. Moments earlier,
The tradwife complacency pipeline
The internet loves girlhood. More specifically, the internet loves content about girlhood, most often accompanied by pictures of timid looking deer. There are lots of quotes from The Virgin Suicides and The Bell Jar and Little Women. There are lots of pictures of girls, too, if you keep looking.
A defence of my nationalism
Scottish identity is usually represented somewhere on an axis between Trainspotting and Braveheart. We’re depicted either as honourable freedom fighters carved from the icy crags of the Highlands, or as made beautifully succinct in Ewan McGregor’s famous monologue, ‘the most miserable,
Old Etonians and Old Estonians
Somewhere in some gentleman’s club in 1983, after Margaret Thatcher had sacked four ministers whose early years would have been draped in Eton Blue from the cabinet, former Prime Minister and (bona fide snob) Harold Macmillan made the oft-misquoted jibe that there were now more ‘Old Eston
Everyone misunderstood the For Women Scotland case
I greatly admire trans people. The process of realising one is trans involves a journey of profound self-knowledge and actualisation. It is an example of the highest level of consciousness and self-love a human being can reach. We owe so much of queer and gender liberation to trans people. I
No awkward questions please, we’re British
A couple quick questions. Who built the Tower of London? What’s the age requirement to drink wine (with a meal, with someone over 18)? Who gets 50% off their TV licence? Answers: William the Conqueror; as viewers of The Inbetweeners will know, 16; and in a personal favourite, blind people. How’
Rulers Without Robes
The recent BBC drama Marie Antoinette is an uncomfortable series to watch. The combination of off-tune music, flaking powdered faces, and menacing whispers reveals the truth which lurks behind the beautiful Versailles backdrop: it is a cage, rather than a palace, for the 14-year-old Austrian princes
Interview with Torrey Peters
It is a warm summer day in Oxford and I wake up to find myself in the armchair where I’d been reading late into the night before. Initially, I had planned to only flick through Detransition, Baby once more so that it would be as clear in my mind as possible before the interview. However, […
Vogel’s Toast
Although I was born in Scotland, my memories begin in New Zealand. Looking back at my childhood, it’s akin to a Supercut of a coming of age movie: wharf-jumping, peering into dormant volcanoes, swimming with seals around the islands, mum picking me up early from school because there was a tornado
