22 August 2005
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From the Editor…
Welcome to the New Statesman website. Whether you are a new reader or an existing one - online or via the magazine - I hope you'll enjoy the great writing, fresh ideas and provocative debate that make the New Statesman Britain's award-winning current affairs weekly
Cover story
Have you heard the one about. . .
Political satire is making a big comeback, but whatever happened to that fine institution, the Great British Joke? Michael Bywater on the way we're just not telling them any more
Features
Go on, tell us a joke
Tessa Mayes asks: what's your favourite joke?
The cold war has become warmer
Encouraged by US policy failures in the Middle East, Iran is taking a more robust stance
Does Mr Big really know what we want to read?
The literati's favourite bookshop is going downmarket. But if supermarkets can sell Harry Potter cheaper, it might turn out to be a grave commercial error
Tail of the missing tigers
India must give its villagers a stake in saving the world's most endangered big cat
There has to be a better way to go
The one thing we can be sure of is our own death. So why do we often make such a mess of it, asks Michela Wrong
The squalid truth behind the legacy of Mother Teresa
The nun adored by the Vatican ran a network of care homes where cruelty and neglect are routine. Donal MacIntyre gained secret access and witnessed at first hand the suffering of "rescued" orphans
Regulars
The Politics Column
Politics - John Harris wants Labour to forgive
Tony Blair's display of humility after the loss of many Labour votes in the May elections has not lasted long. Dissenters are still under pressure to keep their views to themselves
John Pilger fears for free speech
If those who seek to understand what drives people to commit terrorist acts are vilified as "just one notch less despicable" themselves, we can say goodbye to freedom of speech
Darcus Howe assesses a British strike
A simple strike that forced us to question our definitions of Britishness
Michael Portillo - Desert airs
Opera - Under the stars, a programme of adventurous spirit shines, writes Michael Portillo 2005 Season Santa Fe Opera, New Mexico
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
When a knob joke is better than Brecht
Comedy has ruined Edinburgh. The Fringe, formerly a venue for alternative theatre, is now merely a showcase for gagsters who wannabe on telly. Or so goes the criticism. Stewart Lee, writer/director of Jerry Springer: the opera, doesn't think much of it
Close to the edge
Taboo comedy - These days, is there anything that we can't laugh about? John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman consider the charges
Film
Mark Kermode - Charmless spells
Film - A postmodern remake loses all the magic of the 1960s original, writes Mark Kermode Bewitched (PG)
Television
Andrew Billen - Backwoods belle
Television - Britney's Louisiana back story is disappointingly untrashy, writes Andrew Billen Britney's Redneck Roots (Channel 4)
Books
Unsung hero of the revolution. In 1848, after decades of foreign occupation, Venice rose up against its oppressors. The revolt was led not by a dashing general or aristocratic poet, but by a spectacle-wearing middle-class lawyer. By Jan Morris
The Siege of Venice Jonathan Keates Chatto & Windus, 495pp, £20 ISBN 0701166371
Keeping it mighty real
Turn the Beat Around: the secret history of disco Peter Shapiro Faber & Faber, 350pp, £12.99 ISBN 0571219225 Can't Stop Won't Stop: a history of the hip-hop generation Jeff Chang Ebury Press, 546pp, £12.99
Fiction - For all seasons
Either Side of Winter Benjamin Markovits Faber & Faber, 235pp, £10.99 ISBN 0571226655
Mitteleuropa
Gentle Regrets: thoughts from a life Roger Scruton Continuum, 256pp, £16.99 ISBN 0826471315
Off their trolleys
Air Babylon: a mile-high journey through the best-kept secrets of the airline industry Imogen Edwards-Jones and Anonymous Bantam Press, 360pp, £12.99 ISBN 0593054563
Fiction - Family fortunes
The Coast of Akron Adrienne Miller Hutchinson, 390pp, £12.99 ISBN 0091800404
