It was, by any standards, something of a shock to discover that the British apparently care more about the plight of maltreated donkeys than maltreated women. The three main charities for victims of rape, domestic violence and abuse have a...
Read moreIt has been a difficult few days: silence in the hedgerows where there should be song, followed by the publication of a profoundly depressing survey into the decline of migrating birds. But today has brought relief. The cuckoo is back,...
Read moreThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation, founded by the chocolate millionaire in 1904 to combat "the great scourges of humanity", has been looking into equivalent scourges today. Having consulted 3,500 people, it has nominated our top ten social evils. They are the...
Read moreOf the publication of silly surveys there is no end. To help us make sense of an increasingly frantic and fragmented world, publicity-minded academics and marketing experts eagerly supply a daily diet of research documents and studies, usually with some...
Read moreOf all the names one would least expect to find in reports of a controversy about sport, life and death, and America, that of Captain Mark Phillips would be a leading contender. The captain – "Foggy Phillips", as he was...
Read moreImagine for a moment that a government body has delivered a report which presents, as one of four policy options, the prospect of your house being destroyed as well as your local shops, pub, village and landscape. It could happen...
Read moreThe shaggy media millionaire and poet Felix Dennis has just confessed to murder. In a newspaper interview with Ginny Dougary, he told of an event, some 25 years ago, when a man he knew behaved so badly and violently towards...
Read moreHow is this for an image which perfectly captures the greed, hypocrisy and downright silliness of the age through which we are living? A planeload of passengers flies from Norwich to Dublin. When it arrives, the travellers wait at the...
Read moreLike a tired old couple nagging wearily away at one another, politicians and the media have been bickering over the great marriage crisis exposed by the Office of National Statistics. In 2005, the number getting married fell by nine per...
Read moreBefore the current pitch invasion by wimps, cissies and goody-goodies gets out of hand, it is time to speak up for bad behaviour in football. As in any sport, there will be certain types of play which are inadmissible: the...
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