Done well, writing isn’t the transcription of thought so much as the interrogation of it.

Mark Carney’s Davos address put world leaders – and their speechwriters – on notice
Blake Matich
Monocle January 2026

“The strong will do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”
Thucydides
c. 460 -c. 400 BC an Athenian historian and general.

The persistence of language-based award categories feels increasingly misplaced. While viewers flick easily between languages, institutions continue to draw borders that the screen itself has already dissolved. 

Why the Academy Awards should get rid of its foreign-language category
Monocle January 2026

Catherine Balston

Autoplay is a minor assertion of power and one of the many, easily overlooked ways that the attention economy leans on us every day.

The death of the end credits: What streaming subtly gained by taking them away
Monocle
JANUARY 13, 2026

And in the same way that AI, as studies imply, might impinge upon our cognitive abilities, the technologically mediated urban environment might be weakening our civil muscles: our ability to simply be with other people in public.

What I gained from replacing the self-checkout with small talk
Tom Vanderbilt
Monocle December 2025

“Unless we do something to bring about change, it won’t happen. I’ve always believed that the only way politicians can truly lead is by personal example. What right would I have to tell my fellow citizens to stand up to the Putin dictatorship if I were too scared to do it myself?”

Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian opposition politician and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist

Monocle 15 December, 2025

“Is there a world in which driving a car is better for nature than a world in which there are no cars?”
plot.

US-Israeli designer Neri Oxman quoted in Monocle November 2025

“We could say that we want our public spaces to reflect our beliefs and our intentions for how we want to live.”
Olafur Eliasson

Public art can help us to fix our cities. Artist Olafur Eliasson can show us how
Monocle, October, 2025

“Age has never affected my determination because I believe that the spirit is more important than the body,”
Inson Wongsam, artist

_The art of ageing: Inside the studios of seven in-demand artists in their eighties and nineties

As we all too easily forget, ageing is a gift – and what gifts these artists continue to give the world.

Monocle October 2025_

Unfortunately, creativity doesn’t extend your life," says Raysse. “But with experience, what you do gain is progress.”

Martial Raysse, artist

_The art of ageing: Inside the studios of seven in-demand artists in their eighties and nineties

As we all too easily forget, ageing is a gift – and what gifts these artists continue to give the world.

Monocle October 2025_