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Natalie Haynes

Natalie is a guest contributor for The Independent and writes. She was a guest contributor for The Times from 2006 - 2010. She has also written for The Guardian, The Observer, The Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and The Big Issue. She writes a monthly film column for The Reader's Digest magazine.

Illustration by Ping Zhu
Comment

It's time to settle down to a nice cosy Christmas murder

A woman browse a book shop, seeing what cover grabs her fancy
Voices

Amazon: Fake reviews can never replicate real venom or praise

Cicero (106-43 BC) in the Senate Accusing Catiline of Conspiracy on 21st October 63 BC
Reviews

Dictator, By Robert Harri: Decline and fall in Rome

Crowning glory: the last novel by Sir Terry Pratchett, who died in March, stars the witch, Tiffany Aching
Commentators

We're lucky to have Terry Pratchett's latest novel

The adaptation of 'Elf' may be one for hardcore Will Ferrell fans only
Commentators

Elf warning: Ticket prices for musical adaptation of Will Ferrell film

Marble marvel: the Emperor Augustus - formerly Octavian - as a young man
Reviews

Augustus: the Biography by Jochen Bleicken; trans. Anthea Bell, book

Reviews

A Celebration of Joy with a Naive Streak by Theodore Zeldin, book

Life-changing: Simone de Beauvoir in 1947, two years before she wrote ‘The Second Sex’, credited as the starting point of second wave feminism
News

International Women's Day 2015: Celebrating the whirlwind wit of

The regulations could come into force next year
Comment

Why would plain packaging stop anyone’s craving for a cigarette?

Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything and Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game are both nominated at the Bafta Film Awards
Comment

Posh men and suffering women – roll up, roll up to this year’s

Pope Francis gestures during his audience with members of the Schoenstatt movement at the Paul VI hall on October 25, 2014 at the Vatican
Comment

God isn't 'a magician with a magic wand', according to the Pope, and

Fascinating women: Queen Melanippe in a colour plate from The Amazons
Reviews

The Amazons: Lives & Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World

The relief, once known as the Elgin Marbles, are now housed in the British Museum
Comment

The Elgin Marbles: Could returning them be the thin end of the

Comment

The Elgin Marbles: Could returning them be the thin end of the

The relief, once known as the Elgin Marbles, are now housed in the British Museum
There has been a boom in ticket sales for female comics, according to an industry survey
News

She's having a laugh: Britain's female comedians have never had it so

A man of many names: Emperor Augustus
Reviews

Augustus: From Revolutionary to Emperor by Adrian Goldsworthy, book

Martin Freeman as Richard III
Features

Martin Freeman, Richard III, and theatre etiquette

Achilles heals: a vase depicting Homer's hero bandaging the wound of his friend Patroclus
Reviews

Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to

Achilles heals: a vase depicting Homer's hero bandaging the wound of his friend Patroclus
Reviews

Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to

An advert for Pantene ad showing how men and women are judged differently
Comment

Adverts for women: The gender agenda

Reviews

How To Manage Your Slaves by Marcus Sidonius Falx with Jerry Toner,

Reviews

Laughter In Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, And Cracking Up by Mary

History

Up, up Pompeii!

Last hurrah: Kirsty Wark and Martha Kearney, the presenters of ‘The Review Show’
News

The Review Show: After 25 years, you can stop hurling things at TV

Comment

Ucas: Flogging ads on the back of its access to students is just plain

If you can't remember your password, trying leaving yourself a subtle hint.
Comment

Last thing you think about, but your heirs need your passwords

Flaunting flesh: a traditional butcher's display window in 1935 shows what was available
Features

The displays of meat that are too near the bone

Comment

Ucas: Flogging ads on the back of its access to students is just plain

If you can't remember your password, trying leaving yourself a subtle hint.
Comment

Last thing you think about, but your heirs need your passwords

Flaunting flesh: a traditional butcher's display window in 1935 shows what was available
Features

The displays of meat that are too near the bone

Comment

If we all claimed, rail companies might just learn their lesson

Comment

If we all claimed, rail companies might just learn their lesson

Reviews

Julian Barnes' Talking It Over: Book of a Lifetime

Comment

Winter Olympics 2014: I don’t know what they’re doing, but

Comment

Natalie Haynes: I am vindicated in my no-make-up policy

Comment

Here’s something cinema-goers didn’t need: another re-make of

Comment

Here’s something cinema-goers didn’t need: another re-make of

Comment

Quentin Tarantino's script leak: Film-makers should worry more about

Comment

Hatchet Job of the Year: More snark and more publicity

Comment

If you want to be content with your partner, don’t have children

Michael Bay on stage with Samsung VP Joe Stinziano at the Consumer Electronic Show
Comment

Michael Bay's lost weekend at CES in Las Vegas

She sent out hassle-free party invitations with clear instructions for her guests
Comment

Michelle Obama's 50th birthday: The First Lady knows how to do parties

Comment

An algorithm walks into a bar and orders a new joke

Comment

We all like a bargain from a charity shop but their main job is to

Peri Cochin, organiser of the raffle 'One Picasso for 100 Euros', stands in front of the goauche 'L'Homme au Gibus, 1914' (Man with Opera Hat) by painter Pablo Picasso
Comment

Picasso for 100 euros? Maybe it’s time I started buying raffle

This Britain

O come all ye faithless: Is it possible to celebrate Christmas if you

1978: All six members of the Monty Python team on location in Tunisia to film 'Monty Python's Life of Brian'
Comment

The full Monty: Can the Pythons really set side mutual antipathies and

Comment

John Lewis advert: Ah the spirit of Christmas, brought to you by huge

Comment

John Lewis advert: Ah the spirit of Christmas, brought to you by huge

Comment

Ryanair's profit warning: Flying is an exhausting business, made even

Idris Elba as a young Nelson Mandela and Naomie Harris as Winnie
Comment

Why do our black actors need to leave to work?

How did Germaine Greer think to keep all her notes?
Comment

£3m for Germaine Greer's archive? If I didn’t chuck everything

Humble salad ingredients like lettuce are 'at risk'
Comment

Tesco's food waste: Didn’t we know all along that lettuce is a

Humble salad ingredients like lettuce are 'at risk'
Comment

Tesco's food waste: Didn’t we know all along that lettuce is a

Eleanor Catton, author of 'The Luminaries' poses for photographs with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
Comment

Eleanor Catton is the youngest ever Booker winner. But we judges

Voices

It’s a free, convenient life-saver. So why aren’t more people

Bridget Jones is back, with another film with Renée Zellweger planned, too
Comment

Bridget Jones being happy? Fans perish the thought! Mark Darcy had to

Authors (front L-R) Swiss Peter Stamm, Chinese Yan Lianke, US, Lydia Davis, French Marie N'Diaye, Indian Intizar Husain, Indian U R Anathamurthy and Croatian-Canadian Josip Novakovich, (back row L-R) Jonathan Taylor, Chair of the Booker Prize Foundation,
Comment

New rules for the Booker? My inner reader cheers. My inner writer

1948: Laurence Olivier's 'Hamlet'
Comment

The play’s the thing – and now you can vote for your favourite

Cameron has some thinking to do on the subject of HS2
Comment

Train travel is great for working. I claim my £10k consultancy fee

Features

Skilled ‘Shakespeare-translators’ like Margaret Atwood and Howard

Jack Nicholson, New Jersey, 2010
Comment

There's no terror for an actor like forgetting your lines (although

Comment

Blissful Blackpool – where earthquakes don’t cause a commotion

Comment

Thumbs-up (and nearly thumbs off) for ‘The Great British Bake Off’

Comment

So winning the Booker is life-changing? Not compared with this lot

Comment

So winning the Booker is life-changing? Not compared with this lot

England and Chelsea football player Frank Lampard poses for photographers before signing copies of his new children’s book Frankie’s Magic Football: Frankie vs the Pirate Pillagers in London on June 22, 2013.
Comment

Frank Lampard: He writes. He scores. So where, exactly, is the harm in

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron sits with pupils Abdullah Rashid (9) and Anna Seitoar (9) in a computer class during his visit to St Mary's and St John's CE School in north London on July 8, 2013.
Comment

Cameron has a point: negative coverage for social media can prove

Comment

No, I'm not on Twitter. Is that a problem?

Comment

Help to Buy? It’s more like Help to Prop Up Crazytown

Comment

Help to Buy? It’s more like Help to Prop Up Crazytown

British comedy duo Griff Rhys-Jones and Mel Smith announce the start of their new TV series entitled 'The World According To Smith and Jones'.
Comment

Mel Smith: Comedy has lost a brilliant talent

Stewart Lee has claimed that high-profile comedians like Michael McIntyre, Jack Whitehall and Frankie Boyle, use writers to help them create material for their shows
Comment

Stewart Lee and funny ghost writers: Comedy is about sincerity as well

Comment

Andy Murray doesn’t need our love – get used to it

Comment

We don’t want the corgis to go hungry – but, really, a £2m pay

Warm Bodies Nicholas Hoult
Features

Zombie nation: Our enduring fascination with a world full of death and

The White Queen, on BBC1 next Sunday
Comment

From the White Queen to Agatha Christie's Marple - there’s no time

Michael Douglas as Liberace in Behind the Candelabra
Comment

It's a coup for Liberace: By sharing his own tale of sexually

Brought to book: Natalie Haynes at home, surrounded by Booker contenders
Features

Natalie Haynes: Confessions of a Booker judge

Rod Stewart, rock’s great lothario
Comment

Rod’s not just Number One – he’s a lesson in getting your groove

Anne Frank became a tragic symbol for all Holocaust victims because of the diary she wrote while in hiding from the Nazis with her family from 1942-1944
Comment

What do we do when everyone’s called everyone else a Nazi?

Geffrye Museum
Comment

A rare victory for east London’s labouring classes, whoever they are

Comment

The quick house-sale industry targets the vulnerable, but show me a

Vote

The quick house-sale industry targets the vulnerable, but show me a

A 10-month-old girl has the MMR jab in Swansea yesterday
Comment

MMR and measles in South Wales: In fear of the unknown, we risked the

Comment

As a way of expressing ourselves, jokes are less destructive than

Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks), from Mad Men
Reviews

The Mad Women of Mad Men actually represent us all

A 10-month-old girl has the MMR jab in Swansea yesterday
Comment

MMR and measles in South Wales: In fear of the unknown, we risked the

Comment

As a way of expressing ourselves, jokes are less destructive than

Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks), from Mad Men
Reviews

The Mad Women of Mad Men actually represent us all

The Independent View

A trip to Pompeii: Let’s have Helen the director

Comment

Surely the whole point of a quiz is its essential uselessness

Comment

Living in an unwanted-call hell

Screen-scene: cinema-goers dressed up for 'Casablanca' at the Troxy
Features

Immersive cinema: Here's looking at us, kid

The newly elected Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Grove (L) makes his victory speech as runner-up former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott looks on at Bridlington Spa on November 16, 2012 in Bridlington, United Kingdom.
Comment

Me and my police commissioner - whoever that might be - could both

Comment

Oh, mother! Why couldn’t you break your hand off-peak?

Comment

I went to a high street. I tried to do my bit. But could I find

Comment

You're never too old to get hit by a car - so stop, look and listen

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