Six of the Best 845

Why do nations sometimes commit spectacular acts of self-destruction? Tom Scott argues that  strange fervour that seized the Xhosa people of South Africa in the 1850s may shed light on Brexit.

"When Jean Phillipson's family returned to Fairfax, Virginia, after living in Bolivia, the main thing her 10-year-old son complained about was the bus ride home from school. 'He wasn't allowed to have a pencil out,' says the mom of three, 'because it was considered unsafe.' Lenore Skenazy on American overparenting.

Boak & Bailey are frankly gutted about Asahi's takeover of the brewing wing of Fuller’s.

Adam Scovell revisits the 2019 television adaptation of Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male.

Birds can see a colour that human can't, explains Tessa Koumoundouros: "In our eyes, we have three types of colour receptors, or cones - they are sensitive to red, blue and green frequencies of light. Birds have a fourth receptor that varies across species in the type of frequency it can detect."

The archaeologist Francis Pryor recalls the day his mother met Viv Stanshall.