Our cover art for the new issue of Delayed Gratification is Le Mot Juste by French artist Lucile Gauvain. She splits her time between working on film set design for major international movies and creating her own original works in her workshop in Paris. How did you become an artist? I have drawn since I was little. I went to art school, I went on to study architecture and I liked it, but I always felt I was missing something. Then I discovered the world of set design in cinema and it seemed perfect – it touched on architecture and drawing but I didn’t need to find my own topics to pursue becau ..read more

The 53rd issue of Delayed Gratification features an article by our associate editor Matthew Lee about the Dublin riots in November 2023. Marcus Webb speaks to him about his reporting from the Irish capital. Marcus Webb: What happened in November in Dublin, and why did you want to write about it for Delayed Gratification? Matthew Lee: Well, what happened in Ireland on 23rd November was the country’s worst unrest in decades. In the middle of the day three young children and an adult were stabbed outside a primary school, and after rumours spread online that the attacker was an immigrant – h ..read more

The heavy rains brought by Storm Daniel started to fall on Derna on 10th September. Within hours photographer Mohamed Nabil, who lives in the Libyan port city, knew that he was witnessing something unprecedented. “I realised that the storm would be catastrophic when I saw the valley, which runs through the heart of the city, becoming inundated with water,” he says. “The force of the water’s flow was daunting and powerful. It was ruthless.” At approximately 2.30am on 11th September, after hours of torrential rain, two dams above the city collapsed and the waters they were holding back swept thr ..read more

On 11th July Woking council presented residents of the English town with a series of unappetising choices. They were asked whether they would prefer to lose their public toilets, end the upkeep of 13 sports pavilions or begin the phased closure of Pool in the Park, the much-loved local swimming baths. These miserable options were just a small part of a swathe of cuts mooted by councillors since they were forced to issue a ‘section 114’ notice – an effective declaration of bankruptcy – on 7th June. “It’s just horrendous,” says council leader Ann-Marie Barker of the cuts. “But it’s what we’ve go ..read more

  This infographic is taken from issue 51 of Delayed Gratification magazine ..read more

  This infographic is taken from issue 52 of Delayed Gratification magazine ..read more

As you travel around Atlanta you notice two sets of signs. The first, plastered on an inordinate number of billboards across Georgia’s capital, is for personal injury lawyers. Alternately stern and jovial attorneys with big teeth and expensive suits urge you to call their toll-free numbers and cash in on car accidents that were not your fault. A casual observer might believe the entire local economy to be based on litigating fender-benders. The other set of signs is smaller and more subtle, but once you notice its message you’ll see it everywhere, graffitied over walls, scrawled onto road sign ..read more

Vladimir Ashurkov last spoke to Alexei Navalny a week before the Russian opposition activist returned to his home country. Just five months earlier in August 2020 Navalny had been poisoned in what appeared to be a state-sponsored assassination attempt, but he refused to live in exile. “There really wasn’t a question in his mind of whether to return,” says Ashurkov. “But he understood that there was a high probability of his arrest and further persecution.” The life of Navalny, who in recent years has become the most prominent political threat to Russian president Vladimir Putin, had been left ..read more

“I’m Jerry Springer and I want to be your governor. After sharing some specific solutions for our unemployment and education problems in the state it looks like the nomination is finally within grasp, which makes what I am about to tell you more difficult. So, nine years ago I spent time with a woman I shouldn’t have. And I paid her with a cheque. I wish I hadn’t done that. And the truth is I wish no one would ever know. But in the rough world of politics, opponents are not about to let personal embarrassments lay to rest. Perhaps, like you, I’m not sure what any of this has to do with being g ..read more

Saturday 11th February, five days after the earthquakes The excavators at the cemetery in Adiyaman crunch and wail. Graveyards are usually quiet places, but not here. Not now. Five days have passed since two devastating earthquakes hit southeast Turkey and northeast Syria. Adiyaman, an ancient Turkish city of a quarter of a million people, has been destroyed. In the graveyard hundreds grieve or search for the bodies of their loved ones as the machines work around the clock. The sound is overwhelming. In the first few days after the earthquakes every victim was buried in a separate space. Numbe ..read more