It is a rather bewildering contradiction of our increasingly peculiar society that, while cruelty in everyday life is the subject of unprecedented disapproval, it is positively celebrated and encouraged in the world of entertainment. Everyone from primary schoolchildren to chief...
Read morePredictions that those organising our Olympic adventure would learn important lessons from the way the Beijing Games were run have turned out to be alarmingly true. In east London, a local council has been enthusiastically adopting the Chinese solution to...
Read moreNow at least we know the origin of the phrase "a crashing bore". The Great Crash of 2008 will, we have been assured, affect us all; what nobody explained was that its first casualty would be normal, sane human discourse....
Read moreEven now he is no longer in a position of power, John Prescott continues to serve his country well. He is a weather-vane of contemporary insecurities. Few figures in public life highlight so clearly the flaws and hang-ups of modern...
Read moreThe television presenter Richard Madeley was having lunch with his agent, discussing possible book projects. They had rejected ideas that had come in from publishers – "The Madeley Medley of Celebrity Gaffes" was probably there, not to mention "Sofa So...
Read moreThe week's sporting news has had more than its normal share of thugs and saints. In one story, a young sportsman, famous for his activities on and off the pitch, was involved in an ugly fist-fight with a fellow team-member....
Read moreIt seems that Steve Fossett died an adventurer's death. During his 63 years on earth, he had sailed impossible voyages, broken records in hot-air balloons, swum the English Channel, climbed a few mountains, including the Matterhorn and Mount Kilimanjaro. Then,...
Read moreA picture redolent of past brutalities has appeared in some newspapers. A middle-aged man, looking shamefaced and frightened, is being escorted by another man down a street. His hands are tied behind his back and around his neck is a...
Read moreBeyond all those earnest lifestyle articles about down-sizing and the simple life, between the lines of those conference speeches about "broken Britain", lies one big, simple question: how best can we be happy? Never before has our world been as...
Read moreWithout wishing to be disloyal towards a person for whom I once worked as a ghostwriter, I am surprised by the regularity with which Cynthia Payne returns to the headlines. This week, the walk-on part that she plays in Julie...
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