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Perspective Media
July 06, 2025

THIS WEEK’S DEEP DIVE
Sporting heroes and villains
BY BORIS STARLING

Photo by Carine06 from UK - Novak Djokovic, CC BY-SA 2.0

Boris Starling uses Novak Djokovic's polarising legacy to examine why some champions inspire love while others face perpetual hostility despite extraordinary achievements. From the constructed rivalries of Coe and Ovett to athletes who used their platforms for social change, he explores how we project our values onto sporting figures and argues that true heroism comes not from trophies won, but from courage shown outside the arena.

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Reputations: Lady Ottoline Morrell

Miranda Seymour defends Lady Ottoline Morrell, the aristocratic arts patron who became a lightning rod for ridicule despite creating vital sanctuary for writers like TS Eliot and Virginia Woolf at Garsington Manor. Seymour reveals how this unconventional woman – mocked for her bizarre appearance and theatrical dress – courageously rejected the "deadness" of convention to foster creativity and friendship.

www.perspectivemedia.com/lady-ottoline-morrell

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“It is indeed a damnably difficult thing to live fully, richly, gorgeously and yet courageously”

LADY OTTLINE MORRELL

The food philosopher

John Mitchinson celebrates Édouard de Pomiane, the Polish-émigré food scientist whose 1930 cookbook “Cooking in 10 Minutes” transcended mere recipe writing to become a philosophical meditation on pleasure, memory and the art of living. Comparing him to Samuel Beckett as a chronicler of time and habit, Mitchinson reveals how Pomiane elevated simple cooking into something magnificent.

www.perspectivemedia.com/the-food-philosopher

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“Tradition represents a momentary pause in the course of toil. Tradition brings back to life those whom we have loved, those to whom we owe the present and in consequence, the future”

ÉDOUARD DE POMIANE

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