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Even when relaxing, people feel an urge to read something ‘improving’ or useful. Photograph: Noel Hendrickson/Thinkstock/Getty Are humans losing the ability to be idle?
  • Culture
  • Joe Humphreys
  • December 11, 2018, 13:32

Unthinkable: A new book on dossing and daydreaming seeks to challenge our traditional work ethic

Aquaman: Finally a superhero with the looks and attitude of a forgiving bouncer Aquaman: Finally a superhero with the looks and attitude of a forgiving bouncer
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 12, 2018, 15:35

Review: Aquaman begins with a carefree abandon, but then it goes a bit watery

Avicii: ‘It will kill me’ – behind the devastating documentary Avicii: ‘It will kill me’ – behind the devastating documentary
  • Music
  • Jim Farber
  • December 12, 2018, 09:47

Director of Avicii: True Stories talks of film’s uneasy relevance after death of EDM star

Kirsty Bertarelli: UK's third-richest woman releases fabulously rubbish album Kirsty Bertarelli: UK's third-richest woman releases fabulously rubbish album
  • Album Reviews
  • December 12, 2018, 07:00

Sweet Summer Rain review: she may be a multimillionaire, but she ain't no pop star

Why have there been so few women elected in Ireland since 1918? Why have there been so few women elected in Ireland since 1918?
  • Heritage
  • December 10, 2018, 00:00

Of the 4,575 Dáil seats available over 30 elections since 1922, women held just 274 of them

‘I very much relate to that Peter Parker – he wears sweatpants’ ‘I very much relate to that Peter Parker – he wears sweatpants’
  • Film
  • Tara Brady
  • December 12, 2018, 05:00

‘Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse’ producers on superheros, teamwork and Stan Lee

Nick Cave says cultural boycott of Israel is ‘cowardly and shameful’ Nick Cave says cultural boycott of Israel is ‘cowardly and shameful’
  • Music
  • December 12, 2018, 09:11

Musician says boycott is ‘partly the reason I am playing Israel – to stand against those who shame and silence musicians’

Richard Power: ‘The Hungry Grass’ author a great loss to Irish letters Richard Power: ‘The Hungry Grass’ author a great loss to Irish letters
  • Books
  • James MacKillop
  • December 12, 2018, 06:17

Power’s admirers included Benedict Kiely, Máirtín Ó Direáin and EL Doctorow

Whispers of Eastern colour from composer Barry O’Halpin Whispers of Eastern colour from composer Barry O’Halpin
  • Music
  • Michael Dungan
  • December 12, 2018, 05:00

‘Advice from a Caterpillar’ is a depiction on solo bass clarinet of the conversation in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ between Alice and the caterpillar

The best (and worst) TV of 2018 The best (and worst) TV of 2018
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Peter Crawley
  • December 11, 2018, 05:00

The Year in Review: Young Offenders and Red Rock among our television favourites

Latest Film

‘I very much relate to that Peter Parker – he wears sweatpants’
When the school play was staged in 2004 or 2005, the young actor already had a life’s worth of experience Actor Barry Keoghan as you’ve never seen him before (sucking his thumb in a school play)
A typically skilled performance from Andy Serkis Andy Serkis revives Gollum to ridicule Theresa May’s Brexit deal
  • The 50 best films of 2018
  • First official Avengers 4 trailer revealed

Film Reviews

You will rub your eyes often Aquaman

 
Mortal Engines: As impressive as it looks, Christian Rivers’s film is pathologically wedded to its steampunk aesthetic Mortal Engines

 
Alex Honnold and his ‘goddamn warrior spirit’ Free Solo

 
Shameik Moore voices Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

 

Latest Music

Avicii performing in 2013 in New York. Photograph: Mike Pont/WireImage/Getty Images Avicii: ‘It will kill me’ – behind the devastating documentary

Director of Avicii: True Stories talks of film’s uneasy relevance after death of EDM star

Australian musician and writer Nick Cave has elaborated on his stance regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images. Nick Cave says cultural boycott of Israel is ‘cowardly and shameful’
Cher: back in Ireland for November 2019 concert Cher announces Dublin concert for 2019
  • ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ now most-streamed 20th century song
  • ‘If we’re going to do a Christmas song it has to move people to tears’

Album Reviews

Willard Grant Conspiracy: Untethered

 
Kirsty Bertarelli: Sweet Summer Rain

 
Van Morrison: The Prophet Speaks

 
Niall Horan: Flicker: Featuring the RTÉ Concert Orchestra

 
Low Sea: Portals

 
Def Leppard: The Story so Far – the Best Of

 

Latest Books

Richard Power in 1969. Photograph: Maxwell’s Richard Power: ‘The Hungry Grass’ author a great loss to Irish letters

Power’s admirers included Benedict Kiely, Máirtín Ó Direáin and EL Doctorow

Richard O’Rawe: My daughter said: “Do you know why the London people didn’t take the book? You killed Ructions.” Creating ructions: From ‘Blanketmen’ to ‘Northern Heist’
Louise Beech: How had I not known my own character’s truth? I shivered. This was my real story Rewriting my main character as gay was a real eye-openeer
  • Portals to a past: a father and son’s impressions of the Troubles
  • ‘Who could fail to love a woman who decides to build an aircraft in her uncle’s shed?’

Book Reviews

Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech review
In the Dark River review: A skeleton is found in Victorian Dublin’s Poddle
Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World 1914-1948 review
Friday Black review: a bracing, ultramodern debut collection

TV & Radio

Ireland’s Got Talent was a big home-grown hit Review of 2018: Reality TV becomes preferable to actual reality

This year the most popular and effective reality shows were escapist in nature

Hits of 2018: Cant's Cope Won't Cope, Finding Joy, Taken Down, Daniel and Majella’s B&B Road Trip, Patrick Kielty’s My Dad, the Peace Deal and Me and Young Offenders The best (and worst) TV of 2018
Taken Down was divided between its female leads, a wooden Lynn Rafferty and a magnificent Aïssa Maïga Taken Down: Everybody here had blood on their hands
  • TV guide: 11 of the best shows to watch this week
  • Leo Varadkar: HSE unfit for purpose 'as it is now'

Stage

Alice: The Musical Panto review: Alice: The Musical at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast

A big, blousy performance that hints at Theresa in Brexitland

Panto review: Jack and the Beanstalk
Photograph: John Allen Panto review: Aladdin at the Cork Opera House
  • Panto review: Cinderella at the Everyman Theatre, Cork
  • Motown the Musical: ‘It makes people smile and that’s a good thing’

Art & Design

Windfall by Paul Ringrose A stark climate change warning in a devastated Cork woodland

Paul Ringrose’s new paintings address show a shattered place where trees have been snapped like matchsticks

Art highlights from 2018 include the Roderic O’Conor show at the National Gallery (centre) Art is thriving in a time of cultural disruption
Cattle in Winter, Phoenix Park, Oil on board, John Skelton. Jorgensen Fine Art Strange Bedfellows and stocking fillers: this week’s best visual arts
  • Art in Focus: For GRS by Colin Davidson
  • Do you want to see all of Vermeer’s works in the world? Now you can

Unthinkable

Even when relaxing, people feel an urge to read something ‘improving’ or useful. Photograph: Noel Hendrickson/Thinkstock/Getty Are humans losing the ability to be idle?

Unthinkable: A new book on dossing and daydreaming seeks to challenge our traditional work ethic

Children prepare for a nativity play: “Religion is filled with fantastical superheroes and stories.” Photograph: Frank Miller Is religion better than atheism as a coping mechanism?
Muslim praying in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Islam has ‘given rise to remarkably free societies as well as depressingly intolerant ones’. Photograph: AP/Muhammed Muheisen What can the West learn from the rest?
  • Is economics corrupting our idea of human worth?
  • Is it time to cut back on criticism?

Michael Viney's Another Life

Illustration: Michael Viney Poisoned and preyless: obstacles to rewilding Ireland with eagles

Restoring the golden eagle to the west has found the limits to bringing back a carnivore

“Like our neighbours, we once depended wholly on the stream, piped to the house by gravity from one of its higher pools.” Nature takes refuge as drought dries the landscape
“The view from the top balcony can be sublime.” Illustration: Michael Viney Clifftops have given me some of the high point of my life
  • For peat’s sake, our uplands need rain – just not too much at once
  • Michael Viney: The beauty of weeping beeches

Heritage

Building scan image of Main Hall, Trinity Museum Building revealed in Making Victorian Dublin Hidden history of Trinity’s Victorian marble wonder revealed

Trinity Museum Building arrived in Dublin like a ‘buffalo among a herd of elephants’

Women queuing to cast their votes for the first time in the 1918 general election. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images Getting women out to vote: The 1918 election campaign
Éamon de Valera with members of his cabinet in December 1937 during the inauguration of the new Constitution, which further defined women’s place as in the home. Photograph: Hulton Archive Was 1918 a false dawn for Irish women?
  • Encouraging women to participate in politics from the ground up
  • Ivana Bacik: We need to hold true to the feminist ideals of the suffragists

Treibh

grianghraf: debbi smirnoff/getty images Na críocha déanacha

Má tá fonn ort an pláinéad a shlánú, ba cheart duit níos lú stuif a cheannach

grianghraf: getty images/istock An crann a thit ina chodladh
Duilleoga seaca. grianghraf: nick bradshaw/the irish times An sioc agus an dorchadas
  • Athrú réime
  • An chritic úr agus Irisleabhar Mhá Nuad

Sponsored

The Lidl Christmas Coach: Fireside Feasts The Lidl Christmas Coach: Fireside Feasts

In this Christmas special built around the Lidl Deluxe range, Elaine McDonnell, the Christmas Coach, gets the season started with a decadent fireside feast to share

Believe in dreams: step inside Wonderland with Tiffany & Co. this Christmas Believe in dreams: step inside Wonderland with Tiffany & Co. this Christmas

Zoe Kravitz falls into a spectacular New York daydream at Tiffany & Co.'s Fifth Avenue store in the latest campaign from the luxury jewellery brand

Vote 100 Celebrating a century since Irish women won the right to vote
 

Most Read in Culture

1 Even when relaxing, people feel an urge to read something ‘improving’ or useful. Photograph: Noel Hendrickson/Thinkstock/Getty Are humans losing the ability to be idle?
2 Avicii performing in 2013 in New York. Photograph: Mike Pont/WireImage/Getty Images Avicii: ‘It will kill me’ – behind the devastating documentary
3 Ashley Blaine Featherson and Logan Browning in the US Netflix comedy ‘Dear White People’, which explores the dynamics of modern race relations. Photograph: Eddy Chen/Netflix Can you be racist against white people?
4 Children prepare for a nativity play: “Religion is filled with fantastical superheroes and stories.” Photograph: Frank Miller Is religion better than atheism as a coping mechanism?
5 Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson can do nothing with material that has become worse with each installment. Fifty Shades Freed: About as sexy as a 1990s ice-cream ad
6 Building scan image of Main Hall, Trinity Museum Building revealed in Making Victorian Dublin Hidden history of Trinity’s Victorian marble wonder revealed
7 John Cooney: “In the light of the astonishing failure of writers to examine seriously the suicide possibility, my conclusion, therefore, is that Merton regretted giving up Margie and was so eaten with remorse that she had married someone else, he no longer felt it worthwhile living” Thomas Merton: the hermit who never was, his young lover and mysterious death
8 Hugh O’Neill makes a formal submission to the English after the suppression of his Irish rebellion. Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images The real battle of Kinsale: a three-way tussle of titanic egos
9 Warm relationship: Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in July. Photograph: Doug Mills/NYT Could Donald Trump really be spying for Vladimir Putin?
10 Mayte Garcia: “I was very open about saying I was going to write a book and he never said anything. I would never disrespect the father of my child.” Living with Prince: ‘I think it’s time you got birth control’
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Theresa May gives a statement at Downing Street. It is easier to keep pretending that, if only May had stuck it to the Europeans in the negotiations, the perfect have-cake/eat-cake Brexit would have been delivered. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Fintan O’Toole: Brexit ultras haven’t the guts to do the only logical thing
(Original Caption) 'Germany: World War I Armistice: Officers celebrate at captured German canteen.' In reality, the industrial nature of the slaughter destroyed all the notions of individual heroism and chivalry. Fintan O’Toole: The first World War is still being fought
Leo Varadkar is hoisted on shoulders after being elected as leader of Fine Gael at the Mansion House, Dublin. File photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times ‘Leo Varadkar: A Very Modern Taoiseach’ is shallow, flimsy and exaggerated

On My Culture Radar

Seána Kerslake: On My Culture Radar Seána Kerslake: On My Culture Radar

The actor on her love of Gena Rowlands, FaceGym and why she’s impressed by Summer 1993

Lisa Harding: “handles a profoundly difficult issue with absolute care and multitudes of heart”
The Book Club Click to join in the discussion about this month's book, Harvesting by Lisa Harding
 
Shelved: a selection of books by Irish women writers. Might some of these names figure in the final 12?
Women writers Putting Irish women writers back in the picture
 

Culture Videos

Hidden history of Victorian Dublin revealed8:27 Hidden history of Victorian Dublin revealed
Avicii True Stories - official trailer1:21 Avicii True Stories - official trailer
Mortal Engines - official trailer 2:24 Mortal Engines - official trailer
Free Solo - official trailer2:21 Free Solo - official trailer

Galleries

Bono and Adam Clayton on stage... Photograph: Tom Honan/The Irish Times In pictures: U2 at 3Arena, Dublin
Photograph: Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker In Pictures: U2 live in Belfast
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Thu 13/12/2018
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