What Is a Fun Palace?

How a Once-Defunct Idea for Community-Driven Joy Springs to Life Every Year

This piece publishes alongside the Zócalo/Los Angeles Times program “Would Parliamentary America Have More Fun?,” tomorrow, Friday, February 23, at 7 PM PST. Register here to attend in person or online.

For one weekend in 2014, my local community and I came together and took over Brockwell Lido, an outdoor swimming pool in South London. We put on an entirely free weekend of arts, culture, and science events for our community. There were kayaks in the swimming pool, shadow puppetry, cheerleading, scientists talking about the effects …

by Amie Taylor | February 22, 2024

Queen Elizabeth II Knew the Virtues of Being Vanilla

Not Offering an Opinion Was Key to the Monarch’s Success—A Strategy Her Son Would Do Well to Embrace

by Matt Qvortrup | September 12, 2022

If the British monarchy is to survive, it needs someone who is as bland as Queen Elizabeth II.

You would look in vain for any controversial statements made by the queen …

How Everyday Britons Forced Their Government to Save Itself

During the 1832 “Days of May,” Citizens Threatened Outright Revolution Until Parliament Passed a Landmark Bill

By Tom Zoellner | December 16, 2021

The legislature had ground to a standstill on countless issues of national import. Special-interest dark money poured freely into the legislative process, and the public could never be sure whose …

Who Should Rule These Scottish Islands?

Even if All of Scotland Achieves Independence, the Archipelago of Orkney May Not Gain Sovereignty

by Bruno Kaufmann | September 4, 2014

Ten years ago a farmer was digging in his backyard in Ness of Brodgar—a village on one of the islands that makes up the Scottish archipelago of Orkney—when he came …

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