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Sean Thomas

Sean Thomas

The Spectator

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Grave mistake / Australians are destroying our ancient past

Grave mistake /					 													 						Australians are destroying our ancient past
25.03.2025 10

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Good riddance to literary fiction

Good riddance to literary fiction
14.03.2025 50

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Moët woes / Confessions of a luxury travel writer

19.02.2025 20

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

The bitter cocktail of British decline

02.02.2025 20

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Burmese blues / The bitter cocktail of British decline

02.02.2025 10

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Bot rot / It’s not just DeepSeek, all AI is censored

29.01.2025 7

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Has Donald Trump saved the world?

26.01.2025 50

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

The town that inspired One Hundred Years of Solitude

The homes of famous writers are disappointing. Often, you see the famous desk, and that’s about it. There are exceptions: for example, Pushkin’s...

16.12.2024 20

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Red lights and shinto rites in Osaka

It gets somewhat forgotten, Osaka. On the bamboo-and-tatami trail of Japanese sites, this ancient port, fort and conurbation at the very heart of...

11.12.2024 50

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Last orders / London is getting worse

A famously elitist members’ club, a 900-year-old meat market, and a traditional old barbershop may not feel like they have much in common. In fact,...

06.12.2024 4

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Are you ready for agentic AI?

It’s an interesting and unusual word, agentic. For a start, some language enthusiasts dislike it as a mulish crossbreed of Latin and Greek. Also,...

02.12.2024 10

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

How debauchery turns to tragedy in places like Vang Vieng

I still remember the first time I saw Vang Vieng, in Laos. It was many years ago, before the Chinese began pouring money in (such is the scale of...

24.11.2024 8

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Imperial wisdom / Why Britain needs Shinto

Ise, Japan They say of Japan that if you come here for a week, you want to write a novel about Japan. After a year, maybe a few essays. After a...

15.11.2024 10

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Pregnant pause / My glimpse into a childless world

If you are looking for a pointer for the future of the world, the free-diving fisherwomen on the matriarchal, shamanistic South Korean island of...

10.11.2024 4

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Decline by design / Are you ready for the baby wars?

Such an awful lot of stuff is happening right now, even the keenest observer of social trends could be forgiven for missing a statistical milestone...

23.10.2024 10

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Write-off / The end of the car is now

I love driving. When I say ‘driving’, I obviously don’t mean crawling along the North Circular at 2.7 miles per hour, in a state of zombified...

14.10.2024 20

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

What horror does to us

Tonight, the BBC will be broadcasting what is – to my mind – the scariest film ever made. Indeed, I would go further than that, I would say this...

09.10.2024 4

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Has AI just killed the podcast bro?

It’s a well-known psychological phenomenon: that time seems to slow down if you experience lots of new and unusual events. For example, if you are...

06.10.2024 5

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Montenegro’s lost interior

How many Spectator readers are aware that tiny Montenegro, that silver sixpence of south-east Europe, so long lost in the jumbled purse of...

24.09.2024 3

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Phnom Penh / Cambodia’s return to joy

In Cambodia, everybody is looking forward to Bon Om Touk. If your Khmer is a bit rusty, this means the mid-autumn New Moon Water Festival,...

16.09.2024 3

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Keir Starmer and the evil of banality

First, a little story. About three years ago I was given an eccentric but fun assignment between Covid lockdowns – I had to eat my way around the...

28.08.2024 3

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

It’s time to get rid of your pet

Around the tolerant British dining table, there are few opinions which will see you shunned, instantly. ‘Bring back the birch’ might be one, unless...

24.08.2024 4

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Make Britain Beautiful Again / Why is Britain so ugly?

Family holidays always carry a risk of dismaying revelations. Suddenly you are thrust together, 24/7, over many days, in a way only matched by...

06.08.2024 10

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Brush off / Avant garde is boring

Of all the places to witness the circus parade of modern French history, you can do a lot worse than the tiny town of Espalion, in the beautiful...

02.08.2024 10

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Keep Michelin men out of our hotels!

It’s probably escaped most people’s attention, what with the football, the election, the Ukraine war, the horrors of Gaza, the assassination...

18.07.2024 2

The Spectator

Sean Thomas