Cosmo Landesman

Grumpiness is a way of life

18 November 2023 9:00 am

The cult of cleverness

30 September 2023 1:13 pm

Whenever I’m at a dinner party with very clever people, I always feel like I’m the dumbest person in the…

Can this dating gimmick help me find love?

19 August 2023 9:00 am

Could a new gimmick help me find love?

I can’t make up my mind about microdosing

16 August 2023 12:00 pm

I know that microdosing — the practice of taking a very small amount of a mood enhancing drug — has…

Why I won’t grow up

19 July 2023 11:51 pm

Recently, a famous American novelist came to stay at my place in London. In her later Substack post she described…

Literary festivals are no fun

22 June 2023 1:00 am

This is the season when literary festivals start to happen all over the UK. From the highlands of Scotland to…

Can I be a woman?

17 June 2023 9:00 am

How I tried — and failed — to become a woman

The joy of missing out

26 May 2023 11:09 pm

As I write this the coronation of King Charles hasn’t happened yet, but I’m having great fun watching the procession…

Going grey

29 April 2023 9:00 am

The sex lives of writers

31 March 2023 2:17 am

A fellow writer recently asked me if I would prefer to be famous as a great writer or famous as…

Confessions of a class tourist

18 March 2023 9:00 am

Why I used to pretend to be working class

The day I sold my destroyed piano to the Tate

11 March 2023 9:00 am

One day in October 1966 I came home from school and found a large man stripped to the waist, attacking…

Why your more successful friends will drop you

3 September 2022 9:00 am

How success kills friendships

In defence of staring

30 April 2022 9:00 am

The criminalisation of people-watching

Why men of a certain age love to get naked

26 February 2022 9:00 am

Why men of a certain age love to get naked

It’s no longer just clean eaters who are the health bores

4 December 2021 9:00 am

It’s no longer just clean eaters who are the health bores

Would you go to a naked dining club?

23 October 2021 9:00 am

My evening at a naked dining club

Help! I don’t know what a cervix is

6 October 2021 9:50 pm

With all this talk of private parts, the political has now gotten very personal. Recently, I was having an argument…

My failed attempts to be a good Samaritan

7 August 2021 9:00 am

Being a good Samaritan is harder than it seems

We’ve become a nation of armchair psychiatrists

29 May 2021 9:00 am

Let’s leave mental health diagnoses to the professionals

The agony of watching friends succeed

27 March 2021 9:00 am

The agony of literary envy

The joy of drinking alone

24 October 2020 9:00 am

Thanks to a combination of night-time curfews, social-distancing rules, pubs closing, restaurants failing, the ‘rule of six’ and compulsory mask-wearing,…

I spent Christmas Day helping the homeless – and I was bored out of my mind

18 January 2020 9:00 am

When I told friends that I would be spending Christmas Day helping the homeless at a Crisis at Christmas centre…

OK zoomer, is that really the best you’ve got?

16 November 2019 9:00 am

Every generation and teen subculture likes to put the boot into baby boomers like me. I’ve been physically attacked by…

In praise of cultural elitism

28 September 2019 9:00 am

At present we have a series of ‘culture wars’ over a wide range of issues — race, gender, sexuality, power…