Six of the Best 951

John Harris says the Tories are creating a cookie-cutter Britain: "Anyone who has watched what has happened to British housing will know what is surely coming: more and more Unplaces, in which community and collective purpose are beyond people’s grasp because the physical means to create and sustain them simply do not exist."

Polio terrified Americans, and in 1955, when Jonas Salk’s vaccine became available, they snapped it up like candy. Sixty-five years later, reports Arthur Allen, this is a different story.

Casting envious eyes on Canada, Adam Gopnik asks if the American Revolution was really a good idea.

"Eliot’s own consideration of the name she should be known by is as complicated a psychological and moral question as any depicted in her novels. However, her wish to be known professionally as George Eliot is resolute and clearly articulated." Eleanor Dumbill argues that it is not empowering to abandon the male pseudonyms used by female writers.

"He remembers a game where the other team had a player from Barbados. 'I didn’t get any runs, but he did. And when I went out to field their team was shouting: "Our one is better than yours," and you’ve got 20 people laughing, do I laugh? Or do I look like the angry black man?'" Andy Bull talks to black British cricketers whose careers were cut short by racist stereotyping,

James Collingwood on Robin Redbreast, a piece of folk horror broadcast in the BBC's Play for Today slot in 1970.