The beautiful and ever-surprising cit of Norwich has always been good for a joke for the rest of the country. When a council behaves with lunatic officiousness – banning conkers or declaring hanging flower-baskets a health hazard – the story...
Read moreHow the audience laughed at Islington's King's Head Theatre on Monday when, as part of an evening of politically incorrect music called Taboo-Be-Do!, the singer Victoria Hart delivered a heart-tugging little number from 1928 in praise of a woman's domestic...
Read moreAs the world gets progressively madder, it seems only right and proper that psychiatry is forever updating its list of hang-ups available to us all. This week, with the excitement of a fashion designer launching a new spring collection, American...
Read moreWhat excitement there was when Any Questions came to town. Members of the great Radio 4 tribe emerged from the Norfolk and Suffolk countryside - a querulous, bloody-minded, easily affronted cross section of the mature middle-class for whom the end...
Read moreSometimes politics writes its own jokes. This week's news, for example, that Pauline Hanson, who built her political career in Australia on a virulent anti-immigration policy, is herself to migrate to England would seem to belong to the world of...
Read moreIt was a good evening, Monday at the King's Head Theatre, Islington. Something Happened, ably assisted by Victoria Hart, launched its show TABOO-BE-DO! Hits and Misses from the Politically Incorrect Songbook to a sell-out crowd. No one walked out in...
Read moreIn the very funny American TV series Glee, one adult teacher of teenagers encourages another to be brutal to his charges. "They're children," she says. "They need to be treated rough." It is a good line because these days the...
Read moreOne of life's small treats is to see a philosopher being made to look slightly foolish. When the public pratfall involves a smooth, high-profile French philosopher, the pleasure is particularly acute. Bernard-Henri Lévy is a philosophe engagé who takes...
Read moreBetween you and me, all I can think of right now is scandalous music. This Monday, the duo Something Happened, of which I am 50 per cent, joins forces with the amazing singer Victoria Hart at the King’s Head, Islington...
Read moreAn enterprising sociologist might usefully write a thesis on lavatory paper as a reflection of the way our society has unravelled and unrolled over the past decade. In the early years of celebrity madness, the new queen of tabloid Britain...
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