That contemporary phenomenon, the commercially-sponsored academic survey, can normally be relied on to reiterate whatever the received idea of the moment happens to be. It might be the general hopelessness of men, or the death of childhood innocence, or the...
Read moreIt has taken an unlovely trio to bring current attitudes towards the poor old British countryside into sharp and alarming focus. Donald Trump, James Packer and John Prescott are united in their view that the landscape is an expendable asset,...
Read morePerhaps it is time for Professor Richard Dawkins to scale down his famous campaign on behalf of godlessness. His great enemy, religious faith, may not be defeated but, on recent evidence, the Church of England at least is developing a...
Read moreToday is our national caring day. Across the country, people will be involved in activities - sporting, musical or just plain odd - which will raise money for charity. On the BBC, the famous will be doing their bit by...
Read moreFor the past 12 years, Bob Dylan has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. As the list of his achievements has grown longer, so have the reasons why he will never win it. He is a musician, he...
Read moreSomehow it seems all wrong for Hilary Benn to be chairing a rubbish summit this week. One tries to picture him sitting, like Guy Fawkes, on top of a vast pile of unacceptable waste, but he is altogether too neat...
Read moreThis week, as usual, British television viewers will be subjected to an undeclared marketing campaign on behalf of the forces of law and order which amounts to a none-too-subtle type of light brainwashing. The police documentary is now such a...
Read moreIt has been a grim week in that increasingly murky place, the blogosphere. In America, the widespread practice of slipping secret payments to internet "reviewers" has caused the Federal Trade Commission to rule that all covert advertisements appearing in blogs...
Read moreSomeone surely should commission a biopic based on the bizarre life of Gyles Brandreth, that Zelig in the world of contemporary celebrity. For more than 50 years, Brandreth has played the fool in one way or another, modifying and varying...
Read moreAt first glance, the hypothesis of Anthony Seldon's new book Trust would seem to make it a shoo-in for this year's Statement of the Bleeding Obvious Prize. We have lost trust in one another, says the headmaster/ biographer/ media pundit....
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