Several times this week I have been on the receiving end of benevolent prejudice. A male shop assistant addressed me as “young man”, a clear and unashamed reference to the fact that I am not young. A woman referred to a group of men of which I was part as “the boys”. Serving me in… Continue reading Relieve you of that critique, madam?
Read moreThere are signs that, as in so many areas of modern life, standards of infidelity are in decline. An American congressman called Anthony Weiner has admitted having taken photographs of his crotch and sent them to a number of women he had never met. Here it has been reported that a famous footballer had an… Continue reading They don’t make adultery like they used to
Read moreIt was the sight of a middle-aged woman adopting the now-traditional peek-a-boo pose, having just been awarded the annual Rear of the Year Awards, that caused a wave of despair at the futility of contemporary life to wash over me. Can it really be 12 months since the newsreader Fiona Bruce was enjoying a similarly… Continue reading My charter for a news blackout
Read moreThere is a peculiarly 21st-century need to quantify everything, to list and put a price on it, in order to make it entirely real. The first sign of the trend was New Labour’s obsession with league tables. Then, under David Cameron, it was decided that happiness should also be assessed on a regular basis. We… Continue reading The value of a price tag on nature
Read moreA letter from a young reader in California and an email from an eminent headmaster arrived on the same day. The letter, from a middle-school student called Cassandra, was of the type authors like to receive. She had visited her local library and had come across a novel written for teenagers. “I picked it up,… Continue reading There’s more to a book than just the text
Read moreConcern for animals has a slightly unfortunate political pedigree. Hitler was tender-hearted towards pets. Alan Clark, famously sensitive to the plight of animals, was once asked if his concern extended to humans; “Curiously not,” was the answer. The BNP likes to boast about its firm line on animal rights. Nick Griffin’s party-political fireside chats see… Continue reading Why the daily suffering of pets matters
Read moreLet us be daring and assume, just for the hell of it, that it does not terribly matter which footballer went to bed with a former Miss Wales. Maybe, in a spirit of reckless free-thinking, we can briefly look beyond the lawyers, the pundits, the politicians and the rent-a-gob moralists as they debate the urgent… Continue reading In the grip of slavering prurience
Read moreHere’s my Endpaper column from the summer edition of The Author, the magazine of the Society of Authors: It is, according to enthusiasts, a medium which releases startling levels of creativity. Many of our most successful writers swear by it. No less an authority than the editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, has delivered a… Continue reading Is Twitter bad for writers?
Read moreThe author who wrote a bestselling guide to picking up girls has a new book in the shops. Neil Strauss’s Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead considers his interviews with the famous, mostly pop stars, and teases out lessons in life from them. Cher believes we should trust our instincts. Jerry Lee Lewis is in… Continue reading The great writers’ guide to happiness
Read moreCreators of comedy, by one of life’s cruel paradoxes, want above all to be taken seriously. For them, laughter is good – it pays the rent – but what matters more is artistic respectability. They worry that humour is mistaken for triviality, and complain when their books fail to win prizes or their films are… Continue reading Comedy’s a serious thing, Woody
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