The 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. At the other end of the behavioural scale, a group of highly paid players are… Continue reading The snobbery and yobbery of our sporting culture
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, last September, while apparently looking for a site on which to make an attempt at… Continue reading A generation that won’t go quietly
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 large placard, bearing the hand-written words, “THIEF. I stole £845. Am on my way to… Continue reading Sound and fury in the wake of this financial crisis
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 obsessed by the idea of finding happiness as it is today. Entire faculties have been… Continue reading Why Britons love la vie en rose
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 Walters’ autobiography That’s Another Story has was a feature of the book’s nespaper serialisation. Those… Continue reading A debt we still owe to Madam Cyn
Read moreIt is said that sooner or later the small volcano that is John McCain will blow. The presidential candidate has a famously short temper. At some point, during a long and rough electoral campaign, the wrong question will be asked at the wrong time, and the real McCain, red-faced and intemperate, will blast off. It… Continue reading Look back in anger management
Read moreAt the offices of a high street bank, I was waiting to meet the manager. The door to a boardroom was half-open and, on the wall opposite where I was sitting, there was a blackboard on which various ra-ra business affirmations had been written. “You cannot score a goal when the ball is in your… Continue reading The dream of easy money for all is bust
Read moreMr Blobby of Crinkly Bottom has spoken. The best thing that could happen at the next election, he says, would be for no one to vote at all. Politicians have had their turn, now the people should have their say. If he were prime minister, he would ban all immigration and build bigger prisons. It… Continue reading Welcome to the age of total bunkum
Read moreIt is time to doff the cap to a developer, to utter grateful thanks to a member of that much-criticised group, the energy companies. They may have resisted a windfall tax and made unfortunate jokes about profiteering from the energy crisis, but in south Norfolk, a toast is being drunk to the wisdom and judgement… Continue reading How an energy company put wind in our sails
Read moreEvery generation over the past 60 years believes that snobbery is on the way out, and without fail each of them turns out to be wrong. Class prejudice never disappears, but merely changes its character. The real division today, for example, is between a broad semi-elite, which extends from the famous to the political but… Continue reading The latest form of class snobbery
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