When Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple, recently expressed a worry that his country was becoming a nation of bloggers, he found himself in trouble with those sensitive souls who write about, and for, the new media. Jobs had been making the uncontroversial point that a healthy mainstream press benefits a free society, but… Continue reading I blog therefore I am
Read moreIt was all wrong. The clear sunshine of a perfect early summer’s day, the Lakeland countryside at its most beautiful, half-term in a small rural community: again and again, among those interviewed as the full horror of the last day of Derrick Bird unfolded, the same question was asked. How could such a thing happen… Continue reading A challenge to notions of community
Read moreThe air is thick with semi-comical expletives as another writer and performer advances his career by playing the grumpiness game. Promoting his new book, Anger Management for Beginners, Giles Coren granted the Independent on Sunday’s Matthew Bell an interview which consisted of a minute’s worth of swearing about publishers, publicists and his busy, busy life… Continue reading The Golden Age of Grumps
Read moreNormally as twinkle-toed when it comes to public relations as he is on stage, Sir Cliff Richard has tripped up a bit this week. Announcing a national tour to tie in with his 70th birthday, the Peter Pan of pop revealed at the same time that his Portuguese vineyard would be launching a brand new… Continue reading Who is to blame for ‘booze Britain’?
Read moreA small lesson in the way history smooths the sharper edges and corners of the past is being played out at the Cannes Film Festival with the help of that much-loved father figure of the alternative establishment, Sir Mick Jagger. A soon-to-be released documentary on the making of the Rolling Stones 1971 album Exile… Continue reading Nostalgia tends to conceal hypocrisy
Read moreWhat a happy day it must have been for Melissa Jacobs when a silly old fool called Lord Triesman took a shine to her. She had applied for a job with him in 2007 when he was a Labour minister. He left the job soon afterwards to become chairman of the Football Association, but… Continue reading Entrapment is the name of the game
Read moreIn a tribute by Donald Trelford to his old friend Alan Watkins, the eminent political journalist who died last week, one particular anecdote snagged in the mind. Alan, said Trelford, was a man whose great interests in life – rugby, cricket, wine, the English language – were the same as his. “In El Vino’s or… Continue reading It takes one to know one far too often
Read moreJulie Andrews is one of those public figures who, probably through no fault of her own, has become a larger-than-life representative of a range of contemporary clichés. For some, she is the wholesome, faintly sexless Englishwoman, a trilling, skipping optimist who embodies a lost age of virtue and kindness; for others, she is a ludicrous,… Continue reading What were Julie’s fans expecting?
Read moreWhenever a successful woman experiences some kind of career freak-out, the great Having It All debate is re-ignited. Sometimes it is a politician who decides to spend more time with her family who sets the whole thing rolling, sometimes a TV presenter who goes into emotional meltdown. On this occasion, the respected Daily Mail… Continue reading A little less blubbing from the Blues Sisters, please
Read moreIt is a strange, heady moment. We are at a time of change, yet no one quite knows what that change will bring. It happened in 1979 and in 1997 and, in some form or other, it will happen in 2010: a big electoral shift will seep into the culture, changing attitudes to more or… Continue reading Could there really be life after Piers?
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