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...working language in the corridors and bars of the EU institutions. Many European politicians, however, are much less keen to use it in official settings, either because they feel they’re surrendering some of their negotiating power if they do, or because it gives the wrong impression to their constituents back home. In other words, despite its global status, English...

...work out where to draw the line between speech that causes offence that should be banned, and speech that causes offence that should be allowed. The second is to work out whether there really is a difference, in principle, between offence and harm. Some might say that any speech that gives offence should be banned. The implications of doing this would be draconian. Some...

...work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries are frequent and diverse in character; many are to be found in arresting contexts bound up with displays of power and informal, ruthless responses to the poor. From the early Tudor morality play Magnificence (1520-22), in which Poverty complains, ‘I am baited with dogs at every man’s gate’, through to the closing of the...

...social media. Hands up who went to a newspaper site and stuck with it throughout the day when news of David Bowie’s death broke. No one, right? Everyone was on Twitter and Facebook where the news first emerged. In an era when even the web is starting to feel more like a reference library than a breaking news platform, what is newsprint bringing to the table? David Bowie...

...worked - and got him a knighthood in the process... 5. Lord Kelvin came up with the 2nd law of thermodynamics in Belfast This British mathematician and engineer, born in the city of Belfast, was the first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords. His statement of the physical law concerning heat and energy came in 1854. 6. Tourists spent over £430 million...