Take a random selection of photographs of America in 2012 and 2002 and 1992 and, except for the skinny jeans and the porkpie hats, you'll be hard-pressed to tell the years in which the pictures were taken.

We really care about photography at Vanity Fair.

You know, I used to warm the thermometer on the light bulb... I was really good at being sick. I could forge my mother's signature on a sick note so well I was hardly ever at school.

I think being Canadian helps you as a journalist in America, because you're sort of on the outside watching this big party going on, and you're sort of taking mental notes as it goes on. I think if you're in the party the whole time, you don't notice it as much. And I think Canadians are very good observers of American culture.

Those who remember New York in the 1970s, as I do, look back on a city that had hit a very rough patch - decaying, bankrupt, and crime-ridden. But fun.

Christopher Hitchens was a wit, a charmer, and a troublemaker, and to those who knew him well, he was a gift from - dare I say it - God.

It could safely be said that Iraqis are dying at a faster clip since the American-led invasion and occupation than they did during the last decade of Saddam Hussein's rule.