For a lover of cities and an inveterate optimist, a curiously persistent thread over the years here has the destruction of cities. From an older entry on visions of deserted cities in films to later entries on drowned worlds in...

MEDITERRANEAN UNION "This year’s studio began with a seemingly innocent question: what if we could catch a train from Beirut to Tel Aviv? The simplicity of the questions belies its potential to refuse a certain debate, to move beyond the endless...

Geoff Dyer on Where Eagles Dare "And here we get to the most intriguing paradox of the film. If Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it, then the writers, cast and crew of Eagles were secretly on the side of the Germans, whom they...

Australia and climate change: The pitiless blue sky "Australia remains the largest per-capita polluter in the developed world and is offering only meagre cuts at the Copenhagen summit. It is a dismal record, likely to be made worse by a crisis inside...

Switzerland: Hatred beneath the harmony "Switzerland will suffer as a result of yesterday's vote, its cherished national brand tarnished. But it is too easy to blame the Swiss alone. Many of the things that drove yesterday's vote – growing...

The LED-lined Artikcar bicycle "In case you were of the opinion that getting around in a recumbent bicycle was not conspicuous enough, Manchester-based industrial designer Ben Wilson has created the neon-adorned, toy-car inspired Artikcar. The most...