The real problem with Newsnight
The Twitter feed of BBC Newsnight editor Esme Wren (remember, I read this stuff so you don’t have to) is…
We can’t see the wood for the trees
I was relieved to discover, earlier this week, that the Prime Minister’s special adviser, Dominic Cummings, was a symbol of…
Why schools should stay shut
Has the stock of any politician fallen more sharply, these past three or four years, than that of Shami Chakrabarti?…
In defence of the lockdown
I realised things were getting back to normal when I threw away a third of a tin of chopped tomatoes…
The politics of book shelves
I pulled a Canadian girl in a nightclub, back when I was in my very early twenties. She seemed very…
Beautiful voice, pretentious album: Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters reviewed
Grade: C+ Where did they all come from, the quirky yet meaningful rock chicks who don’t have a decent song…
This crisis will be decided by politics, not science
One of the strangest developments to have occurred during this very strange time is that the Prime Minister’s special adviser,…
Our impatience will end the lockdown
At the farm shop this morning there was a chap panic-buying a large metal and plaster flamingo. It was the…
Would Churchill have worn a face mask?
The problem with face masks is cutting an opening of the right size to accommodate a cigarette, without the hole…
There’s nothing equal about this virus
Filthy germ-laden townsfolk were out and about on the footpaths near my home on Easter Sunday, dragging with them their…
Haunting and beautiful: Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus’s Songs of Yearning reviewed
Grade: A It has taken 33 years — during which time this decidedly strange Liverpool collective have put out only…
If anything is ‘essential’ right now, it’s cigarettes
The owners of my local grocery shop, a mile or so from my house, very kindly sell me cigarettes in…
The corona curtain-twitchers are watching
Welcome, then, to a country in which the police send drones to humiliate people taking a walk and dried pasta…
What a relief to no longer have to pretend to be sociable
Hulking fat chavs pushing shopping trolleys full of lavatory paper back to their Nissan Micras. I can’t think of a…
Britain has its first punk-rock government
The most surprising thing about the letter from Guardian and Observer journalists moaning about Suzanne Moore’s supposed ‘transphobia’ is that…
A guide to coronavirus hoarding
We have now got past the absurd stage of glaring in a reproachful manner at Chinese people on the tube.…
The last great purveyors of a vanishing art form: Green Day’s Fathers of All... reviewed
Grade: B+ It is an eternal mystery to me why Britain has never had much time for power pop, seeing…
In defence of Priti Patel
We will rue the day we all decided bullying was a bad thing. The consequence is that the inept, the…
Grimes has talent – but not for writing songs: Miss Anthropocene reviewed
Grade: B The old axiom no longer applies. In modern popular music, it is possible not only to gild a…
The blindness of cultural Marxism
Words we are not allowed to use any more now include ‘cultural Marxism’. Suella Braverman, now the Attorney General, used…
The rancid meanderings of a long-spent wankpuffin: Justin Bieber’s Changes reviewed
Grade: D– For my first review of popular music releases in 2020 I thought I’d deposit this large vat of…
The last working-class people in the Labour party
A couple of people in the Hornsey and Wood Green Labour party have come up with a fascinating suggestion —…
Wanting to kill us all is madness, not religion
Sudesh Amman was singularly unsuccessful in his wish to kill kafirs, as he put it, and thereby find himself surrounded…
How it all went right: The great Brexit wound has almost healed
The great Brexit divide seems to have mended since the election
A last chance to save the BBC
Whoever becomes the next director-general of the BBC should take a close look at last week’s Question Time. It came…
