Chill Out

Arrogant and joyless: Obama's take on Britain?

The President-elect's writings seem to be coloured by his grandfather's brutal treatment at the hands of the colonists

Snoopers/good neighbours keep out

Without a culture of neighbourliness, it's easy for the rapist father and others to get away with their crimes

Don't panic, it's just Mariah Careyensis

The minister's soup memo, Madonna's loo seats. It's what happens when you're at the top too long

The harsh lesson of Afghanistan

An account written by the first European to visit his country still has much to teach us

The unlikely lad who grew up to be president

The journey of Barack Obama journey is as compelling as it is exotic, and it lies at the heart of his success

They’ll always remember where they were when...

The election of Barack Obama, and his movingly understated acceptance speech, was one of those moments

John McCain - he fought and lost with honour

He deserved to fail. But the Republican candidate was a worthy opponent

Pope Pius: moral coward or saint?

More evidence is needed to judge how the wartime pontiff responded to his agonising predicament

The white lie that threatens Obama

The unspoken legacy of racism could still scupper Barack Obama's bid for the presidency

Rise and rise of the British literary festival

Literary gatherings have become magnets for people keen to engage with culture and meet its purveyors

How much does confidence cost?

The big money is chasing a commodity that cannot be bought or sold on the open market

Two words spell trouble for US voters

One senator is ‘cool', one is ‘maverick'. But neither Obama or McCain can feel happy about their epithet

Small-town America still thinks big

It doesn't really exist, but the idealised rural community holds the key to the White House

Greening the American dream

The US should put the same creativity that produced the car into tackling the energy crisis it has caused

Give the laureate more cash - and more wine

And don't force the poet royal to write about royalty. It might be the only way to get any great poetry from the post

Doomsters’ quark was worse than their bite

Even a complete scientific ignoramus could not fail to be affected by the occasion and the scale of technology involved

Cabinet goes back to school with uniform smiles

Head boy Gordon Brown takes his class of ministers on a trip to kick start the new parliamentary term

‘Surveillance society’ achieves common good

We should draw satisfaction that due to terrorist convictions in our courts, thousands of people are alive today

The British are the masters of deceit

From bamboozling the Nazis to fooling the Taleban, nobody lies better than those famous stiff upper lips

Ben Macintyre on the gory reality behind nursery rhymes