Articles by Theodore Dalrymple

Modernist architecture is inherently totalitarian: it brooks no other, and indeed delights to overwhelm and humiliate what went before it by size and prepotency, or by garishness and the preposterousness which it takes for originality, and which turns every townscape into the architectural equivalent of a Mickey Finn.   In the Guardian newspaper last week, its architectural correspondent wrote an … [Read on]

A friend of mine, of a profession different from my own, received a letter the other day from his professional licensing authority – that is to say, the authority without whose approval and permission he cannot practise at all. ‘Dear Colleague’ the letter began, all nice, friendly and collegial. By its end, however, it had turned nasty and threatening. It … [Read on]

In the second section of the Guardian for 16 January, there is an article about a building in Peru that has ‘just earned… the title of best new building in the world.’ As the awarding body was the Royal Institute of British Architects, it was only to be expected that the building was a complete aesthetic mess, an eyesore: for … [Read on]

The circuses division of our bread-and-circuses regime is certainly in rude health. Opinions vary as to the health of the bread division off that regime: one can find everything from predictions of imminent collapse to those of vigorous growth and expansion. For myself, I find myself unable to decide whether economists belong more to the world of bread than they … [Read on]

Taxi drivers are among the best sociologists I know, and even in war-torn countries they are usually better-informed about the military situation than the generals, or at least the military spokesmen. For me they are oracles: I believe everything they say. I arrived in Loughborough the other day. It was the first time I had ever been there and I … [Read on]

The British Red Cross says that there is a humanitarian crisis looming in the National Health Service. There is a British Red Cross shop in the high street of the market town in which I live. A little while ago I asked one of the old ladies who worked in it how much of the money she took went to … [Read on]

I usually give a few coins to beggars in the street. I know that some people think that this encourages beggary and even fraud, but I would rather be duped sometimes than never to trust anyone. And even the beggar who asks for alms when he could perfectly well earn his living some other way is pitiable, as a day … [Read on]