These are golden times, apparently, for the arts. Last October, a £1bn settlement on the Arts Council was confirmed. One of the council’s senior strategists has predicted, as from next month, “the start of very, very exciting times in the theatre”. Meanwhile a government-commissioned report into artistic excellence, written by Sir Brian McMaster, is published… Continue reading The appalling shambles of our arts policy
Read moreBecause the English tend to take their language for granted, there is no equivalent of the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year. Over there, “subprime” has just squeezed home from “Googleganger” (someone who shares your name when searched on Google) and “tapafication” the tendency of restaurants to serve small portions). A leading, if slightly… Continue reading We just can’t face up to our Englishness
Read moreThere are certain well-used contemporary clichs which are more than lazy verbal shortcuts. They represent clichs of the mind and the heart. Substitutes for thought, they are weapons used by the spin-merchants of commerce and politics. They simplify complexity and smother debate. A perfect example lies in that brutally neat little word, “nimby”. No definition… Continue reading Nimbyism should be applauded, not despised
Read moreReading a recent hard-luck story about Sir Steve Redgrave and a group of young rowers from Liverpool, it was difficult to keep at bay the remark that once landed Boris Johnson in trouble the one about Liverpudlians having a tendency to wallow in their victim status. The Redgrave story was admittedly rather sad. There was… Continue reading Missed out on TV fame? Don’t despair
Read moreThey will soon be all over the newspapers, the bright young faces of 2008, those sparkling, talented people in their twenties who this time next year will, we are reliably informed, be household names. The photographs which appear in the features and arts pages will exude potential. Some of the future stars will look cool,… Continue reading A word of advice for the ambitious young
Read moreHeartbreakingly, news of the ultimate gift of the moment has been announced just too late for the great present-giving orgy of the year. Jordan is planning to auction her breast implants on eBay. All proceeds of the sale will, naturally, be going to charity. It appears that the former model who is now a celebrity… Continue reading Things to do with Jordan’s old implants
Read moreAll the shop girls in Manchester were there. Reading this line in reports of the great Manchester United Christmas party, a man would have to be a very cold fish indeed not to experience a stab of envy, a twitch of forlorn desire. There were also models, and extras from Coronation Street, even former stars… Continue reading Normal rules don’t apply in football’s parallel universe
Read moreIt has been a week during which small but profoundly held beliefs have come into question. An ITN newsreader has been found sleeping rough in Brighton. That is not supposed to happen to newsreaders, least of all those who work for ITN. With their chiselled, android features, these men seem to have been selected for… Continue reading Well, if you will yield to preconceptions…
Read moreA surprisingly effective, if old-fashioned, term of abuse is to call someone “a shit”. Other insults are more forthright and rude but tend to be less precise in their meaning. A shit is sneaky, small-minded, unreliable, selfish and (for reasons no one quite understands) male. It is an unpleasant thing to be called. So when,… Continue reading Speak only good of the dead at least for a time
Read moreShooting from the hip, as has been her habit down the years, Doris Lessing used her acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature as an opportunity to take a pop at the great evils of our time: the decline of reading, the rule of Robert Mugabe, the way publishers promote young authors as if they… Continue reading Don’t be seduced by this clamour of voices
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