Six of the Best 898

Jen Yockney says that Labour, by expending so much of its energy on attacking the Liberal Democrats, is repeating a battle plan that leads it to defeat.

"The whole language of general elections is about what alternative governments can do for people. It assumes a widespread and somewhat hopeless passivity. There is no obvious election language to draw down in praise of the idea of people doing things for themselves." David Boyle wonders if that narwhal horn might have slowed the Johnson juggernaut.

Tim Ellis reminds us that Nancy Astor wasn’t the first woman MP.

Aishwarya Kumar explains why grandmasters lose weight during elite chess tournaments.

You have probably found yourself wondering why so Many medieval manuscripts depict violent rabbits. Sad and Useless has the answer.

"Here was a story of shattered European dreams, of friendship betrayed and transactional murder, shot with all the murky, Expressionistic tricks in the ’40s noir handbook. And then over the top comes Harry Lime’s Theme: an ingenuous and wholly undisturbed tune, the kind that you might whistle to yourself whilst chopping vegetables." Jim Hilton on the importance of of Anton Karas's  zither to The Third Man.