Holidays in Hell – Such A Pleasant Getaway from the BBC
Apparently there’s a new ‘character’ on University Challenge. I wouldn’t know. Last year, I vowed never again to raise my…
On a beach with no phone signal, I rediscovered the wonder of boredom
After an hour’s beach work I was just about done. I’d read some book, I’d skimmed the papers, I’d eaten…
Did Ed Balls mean to make a documentary on the joys of Trump’s America?
The thing I most regret having failed ever to ask brave, haunted, wise Sean O’Callaghan when I last saw him…
Who remembers the greatest crusader?
For your perfect summer read I’d recommend Zoé Oldenbourg’s 1949 classic medieval adventure The World Is Not Enough. It’ll comfortably…
Channel 4 doesn’t do ‘news’ in any meaningful sense of the word – it’s pure propaganda
When President Trump refused to take a question from a CNN reporter at the Chequers press conference last week, I…
Ukip’s on the verge of a spectacular comeback – and it’s all thanks to Theresa May
Paul Joseph Watson, Count Dankula and Sargon of Akkad have joined Ukip. Let that sink in. This is an in-joke…
The great thing about the World Cup is you don’t even have to watch it to enjoy it
Even though I don’t watch much football I love the World Cup because it’s my passport to total freedom. I…
My encounter with the self-righteous cry-bullies of Cambridge
There’s a Tracey Ullman comedy sketch about the extreme and ugly form of political correctness afflicting the youth. It’s set…
More gripping than any scripted thriller: November 13 – Attack on Paris reviewed
There were 1,500 punters in the audience when Eagles of Death Metal played their fatal gig at the Bataclan theatre…
How to raise and train a teenage daughter
‘Dad, am I driving like a normal driver yet? Are you relaxing like a normal relaxed passenger or are you…
Why is this Israeli drama such a hit with Palestinians? Because it tells the truth
‘The rule in our household is: if a TV series hasn’t got subtitles, it’s not worth watching,’ a friend told…
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s transgender superman
Comics aren’t what they used to be. In 1976 I was 11 — the perfect target audience for probably the…
Magisterial: BBC1’s A Very English Scandal reviewed
Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little, so you can imagine how sickened I was by the magisterial…
Turns out life’s not so easy – just look at Ulysses S. Grant
When Winston Churchill was at the nadir of his career, he wrote a biography of his ancestor, the Duke of…
Which now unbearable TV show has been ruined for ever by political correctness?
Twenty years after it first appeared, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is back for a brief, week-long anniversary run…
We don’t deserve capitalism
Next time there’s a terrorist atrocity in Britain, here’s one of the things that will happen in the immediate aftermath:…
What’s the point of Philomena Cunk?
Because I’m a miserable old reactionary determined to see a sinister Guardianista plot in every BBC programme I watch, I…
Why I have succumbed to sourdough mania
This ought to be the perfect time for a rant about how we’ve reached peak sourdough. It’s been all the…
Wild Wild Country makes me want to set up my own cult
I have decided to set up a cult, which you are all welcome to join, especially those of you who…
Why a Big Oil row tells us it’s time to stop fetishising experts
Something extraordinary and largely unreported has just happened in a court in San Francisco. A federal judge has said that…
The genius of This Country
Sometimes — really not often but sometimes — a programme that’s good and honest and true slips under the wire…
I wish I had kept my Brummie accent. I’d be taken more seriously
‘No one wants to send their son to Eton any more,’ I learned from last week’s Spectator Schools supplement. It…
Babylon Berlin is so brilliant I’d advise you not to start watching it
Babylon Berlin (Sky Atlantic), the epic German-made Euro noir detective drama set during Weimar, is so addictively brilliant that I’d…
How did I learn women are superior? From a burst water pipe
‘It’s always me who gets the worst of it,’ said the Fawn, surveying the wreckage caused by the burst water…