It has been a grim week in that increasingly murky place, the blogosphere. In America, the widespread practice of slipping secret payments to internet “reviewers” has caused the Federal Trade Commission to rule that all covert advertisements appearing in blogs must be declared. In Paris, the woman whose nom de blog was “La Petite Anglaise”… Continue reading Spinning out of control in the blogosphere
Read moreSomeone surely should commission a biopic based on the bizarre life of Gyles Brandreth, that Zelig in the world of contemporary celebrity. For more than 50 years, Brandreth has played the fool in one way or another, modifying and varying his act and career as the culture around him changed. When he was at Oxford,… Continue reading The heroic career of an unserious man
Read moreAt first glance, the hypothesis of Anthony Seldon’s new book Trust would seem to make it a shoo-in for this year’s Statement of the Bleeding Obvious Prize. We have lost trust in one another, says the headmaster/ biographer/ media pundit. Politicians, bankers, rugby players, journalists: we’ve come to believe they are all at it in… Continue reading National service: just what’s needed
Read moreBecause politicians only occasionally take into consideration what is happening in the British countryside, rural policies and initiatives, when they do come, often have an other-worldly, Alice in Wonderland feel to them. A few days, ago for example, a report was published revealing that a mind-boggling six per cent of England’s managed hedgerows – 16,000… Continue reading Britain’s green and pleasant divided land
Read moreEvery country which has hosted the Olympics has used it for image purposes. China presented itself as powerful and organised. Australia projected a sunny yet cheerfully competitive nature. The problem so far with the London Olympics has been to decide what exactly our national brand of Britain is. Now, at last, we are catching a… Continue reading The best of British for the Olympics
Read moreCould there be a more perfect nanostory than the sad tale of what happened when a university vice-chancellor made a joke about sex? A nanostory, you may recall, is one of those small media events which, in our fast, emotion-led culture, helps us to understand more important, long-term issues – sexism, for example, or suppression… Continue reading All this fuss over a misdirected joke
Read moreAs the political parties square up to one another during conference season, we can expect the usual sugaring of carefully scripted political jokes among the policy statements. The Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather set the tone this week with a rather odd comic routine at the expense of Mark Oaten, the MP whose political career… Continue reading When politics takes the fun out of comedy
Read moreAs another of the great soaks of England makes his woozy way into the great beyond, we should brace ourselves for a round of that now-familiar game, Spot-the-Euphemism. Keith Floyd is being celebrated as “a character” with “an appetite for life”. Someone will describe him as “one of the last great lunchers”. Almost certainly we… Continue reading Can drinking ever really be ‘heroic’?
Read moreI have a confession to make. In the past, I have had frequent, intensive contact with children. There were boys, sometimes as young as eight. There were primary schoolgirls. Over a period of a couple of years, I would drive to the White City estate in London, collect boys in my car and take them… Continue reading Paranoia that sexualises childcare
Read moreThe Canadian author Margaret Atwood, as brilliant a self-promoter in her way as Jeffrey Archer, has hit on a bright new idea. Her latest series of performed readings have been presented as a showcase of caring environmental concern. The musicians who appear are hired locally to minimise their carbon footprint. Programmes are printed on re-useable… Continue reading Entering the new age of personal guilt
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