e is dying,’ Rosemary Hill wrote recently in the LRB, reviewing an exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris on the origins of the grands magasins. She joins Tom to talk about their 19th and 20th-century heyday as cathedrals of consumerism as well as places where women could spend time away from home, and away from men, safely and respectably. She also recalls the Christmas she worked in the toy department at Selfridges, demonstrating wind-up bath toys.

Sponsored links:

Use the code ’LRB’ to get £100 off Serious Readers lights here: https://www.seriousreaders.com/lrb

Find out more about ACE Cultural Tours: https://aceculturaltours.co.uk

See Maddaddam at the Royal Opera House: https://www.rbo.org.uk/tickets-and-events/maddaddam-details

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

1d:T4a9,In its nearly two hundred years of existence the Conservative Party has survived through a combination of protean adaptability and ruthlessness, not least in its willingness to change leaders. Yet under its present leader, Kemi Badenoch, the party often described (by itself, at least) as the natural party of government appears to be facing a unique moment of peril. Polling now places Reform UK as the leading party of the right while Badenoch has presided over a steady stream of high-profile defections to Nigel Farage’s party, including one of her own MPs, and enormous losses in local elections. For this episode James Butler is joined by Anthony Seldon, a prolific hist

The Death and Life of the Department Sto...