Is there anything weirder on YouTube than Alejandro Jodorowsky’s tarot readings?
Alas, the great Alan Partridge never got to make Inner-City Sumo, despite his famously desperate pitch to BBC TV commissioners.…
2018: a year of dangerous liaisons with Russia
First it was McMafia. After which it was the Skripals. Then the World Cup. Come the end of the year…
Amazing mazes: the pleasures of getting lost in the labyrinth
When Boris Johnson resigned recently he automatically gave up his right to use Chevening House in Kent, bequeathed by the…
Meet ‘the queen of shitty robots’
Older readers will perhaps recall the once popular Sunday evening TV programme Scrapheap Challenge, in which oily, boilersuited blokes competed…
I want Lorrie Moore to be my BFF
Is there anything more depressing than the prospect of reading a writer’s collected essays, journalism and occasional pieces? Most of…
Who needs Jordan Petersen when we have Ferdinand Mount?
You will by now doubtless be familiar with the University of Toronto academic Jordan Peterson. He’s the unlikely YouTube star…
Is PewDiePie the new Harold Bloom?
The most subscribed to channel on YouTube — by far — belongs to a rather strange young Swede named Felix…
Hobbit houses and 3-D homes – everything about these videos should be intensely irritating
Since 2006, someone called Kirsten Dirksen has been posting weekly videos on YouTube about ‘simple living, self-sufficiency, small (and tiny)…
The joy of YouTube is that the content created is content-free
None of us is above YouTube, and nothing is beneath it. We have of course all long since submitted to…
The spirits of the age
Children started knocking on my door last month wearing Donald Trump face masks and asking for money. Indeed, one enterprising…
A choice of first novels
Remember Douglas Coupland? Remember Tama Janowitz? Remember Lisa St Aubin de Terán? Banana Yoshimoto? Françoise Sagan? The voice of your…
Andrey Kurkov’s The Bickford Fuse is a satirical masterpiece
Whimsy, satire and deadpan humour: welcome to the world of Andrey Kurkov. If you know Kurkov’s work, The Bickford Fuse…
The best British short stories — from Daniel Defoe to Zadie Smith
In this handsome two-volume anthology, Philip Hensher convincingly establishes himself as a world authority on the short story, says Ian Sansom
