In idle moments, I think of the great musicians and songwriters whose death would – will – feel like genuinely personal  bereavement, upsetting in a startling, unpredictable way. Dylan would be there, of course, and Randy Newman and, probably, Willie Nelson. But top of the list of wrenching musical departures, I have discovered today, is… Continue reading He’s laid down his old guitar. Thank you, Doc Watson
Read moreNormally a sunny person who likes to look for the positive in life, I seem to have fallen victim to a certain cynicism while writing my Endpaper column for the Spring edition of The Author, published by the Society of Authors. Maybe I really do believe that, as an author, you should should embrace Buddhist simplicity and ‘walk through your… Continue reading Some more bossy advice for authors: downsize spiritually
Read moreOver the past few weeks, I have been landed in trouble by, among others,  Somerset Maugham, Rachel Cusk, Leo Tolstoy and Geoff Dyer. Here is the problem. As a service to the community (and a pleasure to myself), I have taken to starting the day by posting a couple of “writers’ rulesâ€Â  similar to those… Continue reading The truth about creative writing: nobody knows anything
Read moreFor those who are finding that everyday life is just a little bit too easygoing at present, here is a new crisis to help wake you in the early hours with an attack of the horrors. There is a terrible decline in the supply of what the press call “traditional husbands”. It is not a… Continue reading Traditional husbands are an endangered species
Read moreOne of the side-effects of living in a sensation-hungry culture is that the stoked emotionalism of tabloid headlines has become respectable. Not only do politicians prefer to go for feeling rather than thought, but revered institutions come to believe that, in order to win public attention, they need to be hysterical. This week, thanks to… Continue reading Alarmism that’s no help to children
Read moreIt has become fashionable, indeed almost obligatory, for public figures in their fifties and sixties to turn on their own generation, and blame it for more or less all of our present problems. The baby-boomers, we are frequently told by one of their number, are shiftless, hedonistic, selfish and generally more fortunate than they deserve… Continue reading Come off it, Paxo, you can’t blame the baby boomers
Read moreThe news that Ken Livingstone’s next book might be about what he calls his “sexual evolution” is likely to be causing a mild tremor of arousal among publishers. “I would like to write about my growing sexual awareness,” the former Mayor of London has told an interviewer on the publication of his autobiography, You Can’t… Continue reading Could Ken’s civic-spirited ways win voters’ hearts?
Read moreThere comes a moment in a chap’s life when his thoughts turn to his funeral. He doesn’t have to be particularly old – in fact, the truly ancient probably try to think of anything but their last hurrah – but, having attended a few funerals of friends and relations, he has begins to wonder in… Continue reading Some thoughts on my funeral
Read moreIt is an extraordinary fact that there are newspaper columnists who not only read everything which is written on the message-boards below their columns online, as all good columnists should, but sometimes actually dive into the shark-pool and splash about there for a while. They reply to criticism, put counter-arguments, soon to be followed by… Continue reading Come off it, Blacker! A reply to some of my friends on the message-boards
Read more At least we now know how, if you are a comedian whose career is becalmed, you can make yourself the centre of attention. You deploy one of the new swearwords. “Spaz” and “retard” are favourites and, as this week has, shown, “mong” can do the trick pretty well, too. Soon everyone will be talking… Continue reading Cruel jokes are just a symptom
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