#metoo
Does questioning women about their sex lives constitute harassment?
Alert to the combination of a controversial issue and a brilliant writer, Serpent’s Tail have bought This is a Pleasure,…
Alfred Dreyfus is being erased all over again
In London to promote a book, I received an invitation to a secret screening of An Officer and a Spy,…
Joan Collins: I’m an actress, not an actor. And yes, it matters
I recently tried to put my profession down as ‘actress’ on Instagram, but the only option available from the drop-down…
Why Simone de Beauvoir is my kind of woman
New York A strange thing happened to me here in the Bagel last week. Having read the recent review…
The men I’ve groped (including Boris)
Charlotte Edwardes reports that Boris put his hand on her leg during lunch 20 years ago. Full disclosure, I put…
A captivating freak-show: Bitter Wheat reviewed
Bitter Wheat, David Mamet’s latest play, features a loathsome Hollywood hotshot, Barney Fein, who offers to turn an actress into…
The case for locking Joe Biden in a cupboard
Most candidates for the Democratic nomination are struggling to be noticed in a crowded field. Elizabeth Warren details policy proposals.…
Is anything creepier than a ‘male feminist’?
Over a drink recently I sat next to a man who announced, barely before he’d taken his first sip, that…
Joe Biden and the deranged policing of personal space
Conservative pundits and Republican politicians are joining the Democratic outcry against former vice president Joe Biden, accusing him of inappropriately…
Would the Democrats rather win in 2020, or eat themselves alive?
Do Democrats want to win the 2020 election? Do they understand why they lost in 2016? I’m increasingly unsure. It…
The fall of Daniel Barenboim
A few years ago, I hooked up with a BBC team in Berlin to record a programme with Daniel Barenboim.…
I’m all for abolishing flying: first-class on a liner is far more fun
Gstaad It’s party time here. From the richest billionaires down to those impoverished souls with only a few million…
Why do authors have to be ‘moral’? Because their publishing contracts tell them so
Suppose you’re a writer with a self-destructive proclivity for sticking your neck out. Would you sign a book contract that…
What Mills & Boon can teach us in the age of #MeToo
In celebration of its 110th birthday, I downloaded a Mills & Boon — The Greek Tycoon’s Blackmailed Mistress — and…
Bring back Kevin Spacey
The sixth and final season of House of Cards has begun without Kevin Spacey, who played the murderous Democratic American…
What do #MeToo women feel about downtrodden husbands?
Eight years ago, in the course of doing some research into literacy teaching in London, I visited many primary schools.…
The horror of choosing a Halloween costume
Halloween used to be easy. It was a fancy-dress party: you could wear whatever you liked. The idea was to…
Are you a politically correct pervert?
It hasn’t always been easy being a progressive-minded man who prides himself on his sensitivity to issues of race, gender,…
‘I should just shut up’: Dominic West on #MeToo and the perils of talking politics
Lounging confidently on the sofa of a Soho hotel suite, Dominic West has been beaming at me, but now his…
In defence of women (and why I ain’t no little bird)
Following Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony about being sexually assaulted by the US Supreme Court nominee when he was 17,…
Why are men being such wusses over #MeToo?
‘There are two sides to every story’ is an aphorism you don’t hear often lately. Ask anyone amidst a family…
The #MeToo movement could be the saviour of sex
Sexual intercourse, Philip Larkin famously wrote, began in 1963. And listening to contemporary commentators, you’d think that it came to…
‘I think The Kinks could have found a better frontman’: Ray Davies interviewed
‘I like your shirt today,’ Sir Ray Davies says to the waiter who brings his glass of water to the…
The Bible’s #MeToo problem
New York I write this on my last day in the Bagel, and it sure is a scorcher, heat and…
A dated and remote two-hour polemic basking in #MeToo topicality: The Writer reviewed
Ella Hickson’s last play at the Almeida was a sketch show about oil. Her new effort uses the same episodic…
