There is, I am almost sure, a funny world out there. Prince Charles, Ann "Dancing Queen" Widdecombe, Katie Price, Huw Edwards, Wayne Rooney's vice-girls, the Speaker of the House of Commons: no one could seriously deny that the raw material...
Read moreWhen pollsters and statisticians are on the loose, making their comparisons and drawing up their league tables, they seldom bring good news for Great Britain. If the survey is into obesity, teen pregnancy, crime, drunkenness and stress, we are to...
Read moreA small mystery is contained in the day’s news. According to the 2010 Living Planet Index, just published by the World Wildlife Fund, human demand for the world’s resources has doubled since 1966, causing tropical wildlife to decline by 60...
Read moreThese are confusing times for the English gentleman. Everything in his background has told him that manners are what help define him, but in this sharp-elbowed, aggressively egalitarian world, he has discovered that old-fashioned niceness is no longer quite enough....
Read moreI so so love you. With five unlikely little words, uttered within seconds of being elected, the new leader of the Labour Party showed the world that he was a sympathetic kind of guy who was prepared to let his...
Read moreIn a cynical, marketing-crazed world, it is probably absurd to be distracted by three words on a promotional poster. All the same, one or two people might have registered the mildest start of surprise at seeing a quote which...
Read moreThe last time I spoke to Claire Rayner was when she rang me this summer. It was in the aftermath of the General Election, and Claire was contacting friends to encourage them (“encourage” is probably in an inadequate...
Read moreThere are few certainties in British political life right now, but here is one. If the government follows through on its recent promise to allow the culling of badgers in areas infected by bovine TB, it will quickly find itself...
Read moreThe much-loved author Alexander McCall Smith is concerned about moral pollution. He believes that swearing blights society, representing "casual aggression" and, under certain circumstances, "a form of sexual intrusion". Coincidentally, what McCall Smith calls "strong language" has been on my...
Read moreAnyone who prefers to believe, with Woody Allen, that there is no such thing as bad sex would be advised to avoid a recent interview with one of the two women who have found fame by selling their accounts of...
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