What a very strange and not entirely pleasant business it must be to become a National Treasure. Some, like Sir David Attenborough or Michael Palin, might have been born for it. Others, like Billy Connolly, have had to work harder. Now and then, most recently during last weekend’s profoundly embarrassing media love-in for Stephen Fry,… Continue reading Why Sunday night’s Fry-up left a greasy after-taste
Read moreIt is a big week for Sir Giles Backwoodsman, the landowner and country sportsman who has been asked to explain the Conservative Party’s new green policies to traditional party supporters across the country. “Green really can be blue, you know,” Sir Giles told me when I interviewed him before a roaring fire in the old… Continue reading How turning off nanny’s heating will save the planet
Read moreIn Japan, they are writing novels on mobile phones. Nearer home, the quickest, hottest way to communicate is through a controversial, attention-grabbing blog. Forms of expression are moving and morphing, popping the buttons of the old conventions like the Incredible Hulk entering one of his green moods. Yet one aspect remains unchanged. Not only are… Continue reading New punctuation to hit the right note in these jazzy times
Read moreThey will be settling in this week, all those nervous, excited first-year university students. During Freshers’ Week, they will sign up for societies and clubs, often more out of duty than enthusiasm. They may go out drinking with their peers, engaging in edgy conversation and wishing they were at home. A few may even wonder… Continue reading Students’ laziness is an education in itself
Read moreIt is now known that a major new crisis is about to engulf the BBC. A producer has been suspended. There are threats of sackings. Unions are involved. According to the chorus of critics of the Corporation, who are ever on hand to make things worse, the latest revelations reveal a profound moral and managerial… Continue reading ‘Pussygate’ proves we have lost our innocence
Read moreFor a true appreciation of the delicate balance which exists between contemporary wealth, conscience and poverty, the best place to start is at a prominent charity dinner and auction. At these fashionable events, various key players in the great soap opera of contemporary life are brought together. The majority of guests will be people on… Continue reading The rich still try to buy their way in to heaven
Read moreWildness is quite the thing right now. On TV, suburban makeover shows have been supplanted by a new, hairier kind of fantasy in which man – represented by Ray Mears, Bear Grylls or Bruce Parry – pitches his wits against nature. Meanwhile, in the bookshops, the needs of armchair adventurers are being answered by two… Continue reading Capitalism v conservation: there’s only one winner
Read moreIn these property-obsessed days, it’s refreshing to hear of those few brave people who have not been caught up with homes, houses and domestic life. In Norfolk, a local council has been worrying over the past two years about a group of travellers who had set up home without the required planning permission. Last week,… Continue reading Why this couple are an example to us all
Read moreTen years after the car crash in Paris that opened the floodgates of public emotion, the crying game is still playing well in politics and in the media. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, was tearful when interviewed following the shooting of Rhys Jones, an event which also made the BBC newsreader Fiona Bruce cry when… Continue reading We should all cherish Ann Widdecombe
Read moreFew subjects provide the English with quite so much guilty fascination as that of Englishness. Convinced that we are enigmatic and widely misunderstood by less psychologically complex nations, we tend to be boastfully modest about our national character, forever drawing attention to how self-effacing we are. Oliver James has put us on the couch, travel… Continue reading England’s green and adolescent land
Read more
