One of the easiest ways for a British writer to gain cheap credibility with readers is to sneer at his fellow-countrymen. Foreigners like these acts of literary self-abuse because they make them feel smug. The English love them even more...
Read moreIn a conveniently neat Old Year/New Year package, the government has provided evidence as to why, on the big questions of policy, it is not to be trusted. Old year. Three days before Christmas, an excellent time to bury bad...
Read moreThis time 10 years ago the internet was a bubble that was about to burst. Mobile phones were simply telephones that one could carry around. A blog sounded like a monster from Dr Who. Social networking involved meeting people. Defriending...
Read moreImagine, for a moment, a Christmas TV special produced by someone who has courageously decided to break with tradition. Jeremy Paxman is in the chair and among the guests gathered for yuletide are Sir Mick Jagger, Tracey Emin, Andy Murray,...
Read moreLiterary purists – JM Coetzee, Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, myself – like to argue that the writing of fiction is a solitary, often anguished, occupation. Increasingly, though, the idea is taking route that writing can be a social, even larky...
Read moreDecember is, traditionally, a moment when those who write and review books express seasonal good cheer by puffing their friends' latest work in the newspapers' Christmas recommendation lists. A few take a more self-promotional approach, preferring to remind the world...
Read moreA DJ leaves his morning show. The nation mourns. When Terry Wogan presented his last morning Radio 2 show this week (he’ll be back in another next year), it was an event which was marked in the BBC news throughout...
Read moreThere are, it seems, two categories of lying in public life. There is the personal, self-serving lie, designed to advance a career, cover up a scandal, to make some extra cash from a sloppily structured expenses system. Then there is...
Read moreOh, bugger. At the very moment when finally – and nervously – I am joining the blogging community, the whole thing is slipping out of fashion. In a brilliant Observer article about writing in the digital age, Tim Adams refers...
Read moreHere is the latest news from Planet Bonkers: in order to encourage children to become involved in the 2012 Olympics, a computer simulation of running round a track is being sent to schools. The ultimate in sport for all (it...
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