19 April 2004

From the Editor…

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Cover story

Get out now

Iraq - Invaders have ripped up the fabric of a nation that survived Saddam Hussein. This is a war of liberation and we are the enemy

Features

As the death toll rises, a region holds its breath

Iraq - Jordan fears a backlash against its support of America; Syria worries about economic sanctions for its anti-US stand. The Middle East feels jittery, reports Barbara Smith

Lindsey Hilsum - Each Iraqi is both pro- and anti-war

The pro- and anti-war camps, polarised and strident in the US and Britain, are contained inside the head of nearly every individual Iraqi

The food revolution that lost its soul

As organic produce booms, supermarkets and big processing companies have moved in. Does it matter that the pioneers are pulling out?

Second-class allies

In the ten countries that will soon accede, support for the EU has now given way to disillusion - not least because of new migration policies

One man and his dogs

Michael McMahon sees at first hand the big problem for Georgia's president: his enemy's fierce canine friends

Where pink shirts mark out the killers

Jason Cowley travels to Rwanda with Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, and finds that the perpetrators of genocide, though visible everywhere, are neither abused nor shunned

Essay

NS Essay - Friendship is the invisible thread running through society

Friends can give you longer life and better health. But they can also be the basis for hierarchy, social exclusion and hostility to strangers. Another word for friend is "crony". By Richard Reeves.

Regulars

Darcus Howe - hails a Caribbean genius

We Caribbean folk play cricket with joy, not with the imperial hauteur of the English

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

Fag end of fashion

Smoking in films once signified rebellion, coolness and sex appeal. Now it is shorthand for "loser". Zoe Williams on the death of the smouldering screen siren

The naked truth

Art - Richard Cork finds Lucian Freud as uncompromising and unconventional as ever

Changing rooms

Opera - Peter Conrad on a revolutionary epic's drab contemporary make-over

Michael Portillo - Wherefore art thou passion?

Theatre - These star-crossed lovers lack all signs of sexual chemistry, writes Michael Portillo Romeo and Juliet Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford

Mark Kermode - French horn

Film - A "highbrow" Gallic porn flick has a few low moments, writes Mark Kermode The Good Old Naughty Days (Restricted 18)

Andrew Billen - The sums add up

Television - A tale of Big Bang physics that doesn't cheapen the science by Andrew Billen Hawking (BBC2)

The fan - Hunter Davies sings along to the Euro music

I can't make out the words of the Euro music except for "LASAGNE!"

Books

End of the affair

In Search of a Beginning: my life with Graham Greene Yvonne Cloetta; translated by Euan Cameron Bloomsbury, 209pp, £16.99 ISBN 0747571082

Axis to grind

The President of Good and Evil: taking George W Bush seriously Peter Singer Granta Books, 256pp, £8.99 ISBN 1862076936

Catholic ambitions

Christina Queen of Sweden: the restless life of a European eccentric Veronica Buckley Fourth Estate, 494pp, £20 ISBN 184115704X

Grey matter

A Survival Guide to Later Life Marion Shoard Robinson, 644pp, £9.99 ISBN 1841193720

Fiction - Editor in the sky

After These Things Jenny Diski Little, Brown, 224pp, £14.99 ISBN 0316725269

Fiction - Go west

The Last Crossing Guy Vanderhaeghe Little, Brown, 480pp, £14.99 ISBN 0316726176

Observations

Don't get ahead too early

Observations on pacing yourself

Cinema deserves a shrine

Observations on the picture palace

How Smith threw the book at Straw

Observations on Labour's lost leader

Send it like Beckham

Observations on text messaging

Bad image, getting worse

Observations on eastern European migrants

Hard sell in the grocery aisle

Observations on advertising

Fidel Castro

The last revolutionary

The last revolutionary

Steve Richards

On Tory policy

Our future in their hands

Science

Religion and Darwin

Since the dawn  of time

James Macintyre

Miliband's dilemma

Brussels is back with a vengeance

Will Self

On Oscar Wilde

Where the Wilde things are

Film review

Bright Star

Bright Star (PG)

Books

Paul Auster

Invisible

Interview

Alain de Botton

The Books Interview: Alain de Botton

Vote!

Was the government wrong to sack David Nutt?

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