Jonathan Meades is a British writer on food, architecture, and culture
December 2022
Snapshot of 2022
This was the year France dodged a Marine Le Pen-shaped bullet. Again
Jonathan Meades
Campaign posters during French elections become pavement palimpsests that exist to be defaced – hence Le Pen in a hjiab, says author Jonathan Meades
December 2020
Book of the day
Dirt by Bill Buford review – how to cook like a French chef
The American writer suffers mockery and swallows chef ‘philosophy’ as he sets out to master high-craft cooking in Lyon
August 2019
From bombs to Benidorm: how fascism disfigured the face of Spain
As dictator, Franco built a cemetery with slave labour and orphanages for his murdered enemies’ children. Then Spain discovered tourism – and the lager louts flew in
April 2019
Militias, chaos and starvation: Britain 10 years after Brexit
The Queen has fled, Polish workers have been forced out, and violent factions roam a broken land. Writer Jonathan Meades imagines the country The Great Chaos will create
March 2019
Book of the day
Pie Fidelity by Pete Brown review – in defence of British Food
From pork pies with mushy peas to the full English fry up … a sentimental celebration of a nation’s traditional grub
February 2018
Building and Dwelling by Richard Sennett review – how to build people-friendly cities
The answer isn’t regimental planning or an abhorrence of plans. Stimulating ideas from a veteran of urban thinking
September 2017
Book of the day
A Place for All People by Richard Rogers review – architecture and the elite
The greatest architect of his age recalls his life and career, from the Pompidou Centre to New Labour’s great and good
April 2016
Appy medium: could Instagram start an artistic revolution?
In this exclusive essay, broadcaster and cultural critic Jonathan Meades ponders what if social media could inspire great art? And what if they’re the same thing?
February 2014
The incredible hulks: Jonathan Meades' A-Z of brutalism
It was mocked and misunderstood. But it produced some of the most sublime, awe-inspiring buildings on the planet. Jonathan Meades, maker of a new TV series about brutalism, gives his A-Z
November 2013
Jonathan Meades: why I went postal … and turned my snaps into postcards
In Britain, we still send millions of postcards every year. Jonathan Meades explains why he is putting his unique stamp on this most democratic of artforms
October 2013
So frenchy, so touchy, about the English language
Jonathan Meades
Jonathan Meades: Michel Serres' call for France to strike over the march of English words is as daft as his nation's daily massacre of the language
April 2013
Tony Hall, take a long knife to the parasites the BBC calls managers
Jonathan Meades
Jonathan Meades: Only a brutal demolition from the new director general can restore the glory of the British Betrayal Corporation
October 2012
You Aren't What You Eat: Fed Up With Gastroculture by Steven Poole – review
The more this polemic on gastronomy lays into its 'hyperbolic', 'self-congratulatory' practitioners, the better it gets, writes Jonathan Meades
September 2012
Jonathan Meades: Architects are the last people who should shape our cities
New, shiny buildings are all well and good, says Jonathan Meades, but what architects forget about is a sense of place – and the beauty of wastelands
September 2011
British architecture guides
Gothic buildings: pillars of faith
Gothic buildings as pillars of faith
December 2010
Christmas dinner with an excess of trimmings
Jonathan Meades
Jonathan Meades: The Christmas dinner is centrifugal. The centre is tiny, even if it is a turkey the size of a bustard
March 2010
Cif green
Our rural landscape is a fiction
Jonathan Meades
Jonathan Meades: Cif is four: No longer a place of work, the English countryside has been tidied up and made picturesque, based on a mythical rural idyll
