Churchill and His Myths - The New York Review of Books
Geoffrey Wheatcroft on a clutch of books about Churchill and the Second World War. Suprisingly clear-eyed piece

Mousetrap Technology - Times Online - WBLG: The Google Street View car causes a stir in Rome
Google’s Street View mapping vehicle alarms Roman citizens, who presume it to be part of a fascist crackdown. Google playing good cop to Gianni Alemano’s bad cop.

U.S. Jews’ Relationship With Israel Evolves - washingtonpost.com
Washington Post article that chronicles what may be the beginning of a counter-AIPAC movement among American Jews

SOCIALIST UNITY » HOBSBAWM INTERVIEWED
Interview with the great Marxist historian in which he says he expects the US, post-Bush, to revert to its traditional ‘realist’ foreign policy.

Chroniclers of pain | Review | guardian.co.uk Books
Overview of sixty years of Israeli literature by Jacqueline Rose

Some films benefit from a second viewing; for my own part, among those that I didn’t ‘get’ first time round are classics such as Repulsion, Vertigo and Heaven’s Gate, films that I now view as undeniably great. But when I got wind, a couple of years back, of Michael Haneke’s intention to remake his horror [...]

A quick word on the Oscars, if only because ignoring them in the week of this site’s inauguration would be just a little too perverse. I didn’t deign to actually watch the ceremony - the last time I bothered staying up that late the winner was Titanic and, as I’m sure you can guess, the [...]