Catherine Mayer

Catherine Mayer is Time Editor at Large and the author of the 2011 book Amortality: The Pleasures and Perils of Living Agelessly. Her biography of Prince Charles will be published in February 2015. Follow her on Twitter: @catherine_mayer Photograph: Cindy Palmano

Articles from Contributor

One New Message: Press and Police Shamed by U.K. Phone Hacking Scandal

If you didn’t cry, you’d laugh. There are elements of farce to the saga gripping Britain—a tangled tale of criminality and corruption, of phone-hacking, glad-handing and back-slapping, of politicians in thrall to the power of the press and of police in the pay of the press. But for some it has been a tragedy compounded. Take Graham …

China Pandas to Public Opinion in Britain

He called us his “dear friends from the press” and said he wished “to announce a piece of good news.” Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, on his first trip to London since David Cameron entered Downing Street, appeared in the most cordial of spirits at a June 27 press conference with Britain’s Prime Minister. And Wen’s news, or at least the

Power Play: How the Childish Behavior of Top Politicians Shapes the World

Democracy is an exercise in adulthood. We don’t want our elected leaders to style themselves, as despots so often do, the fathers of our nations, but we assume them to be responsible grown-ups, focused on carrying out the mandates we have granted them. It’s a nice idea. Unfortunately the more we find out about our political masters—and …

Gone And Forgotten: But Obama’s U.K. Visit Has Boosted Key Players

Here are a few telling symptoms of Obamamania: shiny eyes; raised pulse rate; terminal hyperbole; an urge to trample others to gain physical proximity to the President of the United States, and to do so despite phalanxes of sharp-shooters braced to liquidate anyone who might pose a threat to him. During the Obamas’ state visit to the U.K., …

Obama in the U.K.: Pomp and Circumstance, but What Does It Mean?

Not everyone welcomes the visit by the leader of the free world to London. There was the smartly dressed woman who found herself prevented from crossing Whitehall. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said. “Do I look like a terrorist?”

On the opposite side of the road, some 30 demonstrators protested for a different reason. At nearby Downing …

Obama: So Loved in Britain, He Might Consider Staying

The President was supposed to arrive for his two-day state visit to the U.K. on the morning of May 24. Instead, a plume of volcanic ash from Iceland forced a change of plan that saw POTUS curtail his trip to his ancestral homeland, Ireland, and head for London before Air Force One could be grounded. As officials scrambled to find him a …

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