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From the archives

The Envoy

Mark Carney has a plan

Bubble Weary in Trump's America

A dispatch from the early days of a divided nation

On Familiar Spirits

A senator warns against another witch hunt

Margaret Horsfield

Margaret Horsfield turned to writing after many years with the BBC as a radio reporter. She is the author of four books, including Biting the Dust: The Joys of Housework (Fourth Estate, 1997). She lives in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

Articles by
Margaret Horsfield

Out, Damned Spot!

Concern with personal hygiene is a movable obsession. December 2007
As a child, Katherine Ashenburg spent countless hours with her maternal grandmother, a cheerful, industrious German woman. Happy domestic odours of yeast and linen surrounded her, and another odour, a “smell [that] came from my grandmother herself … whom I loved, so the smell never troubled me.” Years later, visiting Bavaria and meeting bustling German women who worked at…