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Emma Brockes

Emma Brockes

The Guardian

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The America depicted in Civil War is not half as alarming as the real one

As the supreme court heard arguments relating to the 6 January riot and Donald Trump sat in a criminal court in Manhattan, cinemas across America have...

18.04.2024 30

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Joe Biden has gained an inch in the polls – and Democrats are jubilant

It is a mark of the bleakness of expectations among American Democrats that, this week, President Biden’s slight rise in the polls has been seized...

11.04.2024 9

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Ah, spring cleaning: when I’m forced to confront all my past fashion selves

I’m spring cleaning and last week filled eight huge boxes with clothes during a once-in-a-decade pass through my wardrobe. We put these things off...

04.04.2024 6

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

To my horror, gen X is turning to voice notes – I don’t want to hear your mini-podcast

There is a joke in the first season of the HBO show Hacks, pitched by Hannah Einbinder’s gen Z character, Ava, to her boomer employer, Deborah...

29.02.2024 50

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

I’m in awful pain, on a morphine drip – and still I’m thinking about the cost. This is US healthcare after all

I have lived for long enough in the US to be acclimated to most of the cultural differences, starting with 20% tipping and ending with the customary...

22.02.2024 30

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

A place of tension, lies and the dark side of the human soul. I can’t resist the theatre of Facebook Marketplace

There was a snowstorm in New York this week, triggering the shutdown of schools, the excitement of children and, in my case, a flurry of activity on...

16.02.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Think Apple’s Vision Pro headset makes you look like Neo in The Matrix? Sorry, you so don’t

The first thought I had, as I put on the Apple Vision Pro headset, was that I was somehow going to fail at virtual reality. For 20 minutes I’d...

08.02.2024 10

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Don’t underestimate Nikki Haley – for starters, just look at how she gets under Trump’s skin

It is a mark of just how low are the expectations one brings to the Republican primary race that Nikki Haley, the last woman standing against Donald...

01.02.2024 40

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Of course we should let the children play, but should we let them swear as well?

A big topic of conversation in our house is how much stricter English schools are than their American equivalents. What if, one of my children will...

25.01.2024 8

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

New York’s 701-day drought broke with an inch of grey ice – is this the end of proper snow in the city?

It hadn’t snowed in New York City for 701 days – a record – so when it started to come down on Tuesday, children’s jaws dropped like kids...

18.01.2024 20

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

The Guardian view on Ecuador’s gang violence: a domestic crisis with transnational roots

“All I know is that it’s time to leave this country, and go very far away.” Those words, from a staff member at the TV station attacked by...

11.01.2024 1

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

I thought 2024 would be grim and predictable, then I saw the words ‘secret illegal tunnel under Brooklyn’

With storms battering the US and Donald Trump back in court claiming immunity this week, light relief comes in the form of a news story we didn’t...

10.01.2024 1

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

A ‘workout for your relationships’ – what fresh hell is this?

The vogue in self-improvement this new year is for leaning out, that is, for giving yourself permission to relax on the understanding that some...

04.01.2024 5

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

The Guardian view on the politics of migration: when centrists dabble in extremism

Western European politics is suddenly sprouting some very odd couples. Last weekend, Rishi Sunak flew to Rome and posed for pally photos with...

21.12.2023 30

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

The Guardian view on a UN treaty: stop rich nations acting like the tax havens they condemn

It has long been a paradox that the rich countries whose professional services firms are responsible for most of the world’s cross-border tax abuse...

21.12.2023 10

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Banned in Colorado? Bring it on – in the twisted logic of Donald Trump, disqualification is no bad thing at all

Ten days out from the end of the year, and who could have foreseen the latest Trump plot twist? On Wednesday morning, Americans woke to absorb the...

20.12.2023 6

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Why Squid Game the gameshow has trapped me with its tentacles – I can’t tear myself away

My first instinct was to avoid the TV show Squid Game: The Challenge, for highly pleasing reasons of self-righteous disdain. The original Squid Game,...

07.12.2023 7

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Guardian Opinion cartoon Ben Jennings on Matt Hancock’s appearance before the Covid inquiry – cartoon

30.11.2023 2

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Posh English types ordering their eggs ‘over easy’ – no wonder Americans love Saltburn

I had been quite looking forward to hating Saltburn, the loose Brideshead Revisited reboot and second movie by Emerald Fennell that has been exciting...

30.11.2023 2

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Trump is facing multiple charges – but there is one that could seriously harm his reputation

We have been here before countless times: prematurely anticipating the end of Donald Trump on the basis of actions or implications that, for anyone...

15.11.2023 60

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Diana Nyad’s epic swim from Cuba to Florida isn’t even the most astounding part of the story

There is something mythic about the story of Diana Nyad, the first (and, to date, only) person to swim the 110 miles from Cuba to the US without the...

09.11.2023 9

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

The Golden Bachelor is total baloney – but I’m oddly moved by Gerry, 72, and his quest for love

In the opening moments of The Golden Bachelor, the newest addition to the US reality show franchise, a dapper man who could be in his late 50s...

02.11.2023 10

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Guardian Opinion cartoon Nicola Jennings on Monday’s Hamas hostage release – cartoon

26.10.2023 2

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Gloriously unfiltered and unfocused, Britney Spears’s memoir made me believe she’s finally free

The rollout this week of Britney Spears’s memoir, The Woman in Me, seeks, among all the usual aspirations of the celebrity memoir, to execute a...

25.10.2023 2

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Not sure what the US would have made of Holly Willoughby. Still, nice and a bit glamorous worked in the UK

I f it is the role of morning telly to soothe and distract us from bad news, then Holly Willoughby, star of ITV’s This Morning, chose quite a week...

12.10.2023 2

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘young, eccentric billionaire’ shtick was just another part of the grift

O f all the surprising things to have come out of the build-up to the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now defunct FTX cryptocurrency...

05.10.2023 6

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Trainers are now allowed in the US Senate – so why on earth can’t I wear them to a party?

I t was John Fetterman, the Democratic senator for Pennsylvania with a penchant for “unapologetically wearing shorts” while on duty in the Senate,...

28.09.2023 4

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

Debate the law and the age of consent all you want, but there’s no doubt about what’s creepy

P olitical change often follows a change in consciousness; the process of defamiliarisation through which things we once accepted as fine, or hated...

21.09.2023 20

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

The American bully XL furore is a stark reminder of the uneasy bond between dogs and humans

I happen to be reading Evil Angels at the moment, John Bryson’s brilliant account of the case of Lindy Chamberlain and the death, in 1980, of her...

14.09.2023 10

The Guardian

Emma Brockes

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