All 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...
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...
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...
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...
Read moreAt the Aldeburgh Documentary Festival on Sunday, Anthony Wall, the producer and director who has been responsible for many of the BBC Arena documentaries over the past 30 years, advanced a rather daring moral argument. The behaviour of society as...
Read moreFor as long as politics and cynicism have co-existed, the excuse of the apathetic non-voter has remained unchanged. Politicians? They're all the same, aren't they? Almost always, the line is demonstrably false, but in one area at least it is...
Read moreA couple of small but thrilling items of local news might be included in the papers of Hilary Benn when he travels to Bali next week for the United Nations' great climate change conference. Ipswich Borough Council has announced that...
Read moreLike some freakish constellation in the night skies, three sports-related events have aligned this month to reveal a deep confusion in the British soul about the question of competition. Firstly, the moustachio'd old cove in charge of the Football Association...
Read moreA goalkeeper for a pub or school team will know the feeling. The opposing team are advancing and – Phew! – one of their players makes the mistake of taking a ludicrously optimistic shot at goal from a long way...
Read moreWhen the moment comes for the year's Great Britons to be selected, the name of Nora Hardwick must surely be among the nominees. This week, Nora has supported a local charity in the now-traditional way: she took off her clothes...
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