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Table talk
1 Parliament Street, with its white marble walls like slabs of Kendal Mint Cake, is soullessness itself. It is Thursday night and the host has to leave early to make it back to his constituency. He is exhausted but charming, delivering an off the cuff speech that is as smooth and used as an old…
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The professional shame of journalism
Currently re-reading Primo Levi’s account of his experience of Auschwitz, The Drowned And The Saved. The pages have yellowed since I first read it back in 1987, the year Levi killed himself . We’re not good at reading books by victims. We seem to prefer protagonists, be they vain, wicked or shameless. In the chapter…