In 1960, after a climbing accident in North Wales, Al Alvarez’s broken leg was set so badly that over the next thirty years all the cartilage in his ankle gradually wore away. By 1993, aged 63, this ...

For some readers, perhaps the name of Charles Mingus will shake free a chain of recollection undisturbed in twenty years: coffee bars, beatniks, baggy sweaters, leather sandals, the solemnised union ...

On 1 July 1789 the Marquis de Sade, infuriated that his walks on the ramparts of the Bastille in Paris had been curtailed for ‘security’ reasons, stood at his prison window at noon and shouted at the ...