Save our Boxing Day football
Football’s race to destroy the sport’s finest traditions has surpassed itself, yet again. For the annual Boxing Day feast of…
Alexander Isak and the stunning hypocrisy of Liverpool fans
Anyone who has looked at modern football and muttered ‘the game’s gone’ has a point. Nothing confirms this belief more…
Why we should admire Mick Lynch
Rail union leader Mick Lynch has announced his retirement. No doubt there will be plenty who will breathe a sigh…
Alex Ferguson was brilliant, but did he deserve £2m a year?
Manchester United have axed Sir Alex Ferguson’s contract as an ‘ambassador’ for the club, and it is not clear whether…
Euro 2024 was a new low for football punditry
Football pundits are supposed to be experts. More often than not, though, they are just a motley collection of former…
Stag don’t: Britain’s deer problem is out of control
Britain’s annual wildlife spectacular is just warming up. From the Highlands to the New Forest, the raucous bellowing of amorous…
Get a grip, YouTube hustlers. Don’t watch football with the camera on
Once upon a time, football fans used to come home from seeing their side lose, and they would shrug their…
Why can’t football pundits be more like cricket commentators?
For the armchair sports fan, there is some reassurance as the sun sets on another fabulous Ashes contest: the football…
Should Oppenheimer have been played by a Jewish actor?
Cillian Murphy is a blue-eyed Irishman with cheekbones you could slice salt beef on but, sorry David Baddiel, as far…
Readers of Ulysses have a right to be smug
Happy Bloomsday everybody. Today, 16 June, is the day on which the events of James Joyce’s epic novel, Ulysses, is set…
Hornets
There’s surely not a more despised creature in Britain than the hornet. They have long been viewed as yellow jacketed…
Avocets
There are many reasons why birds disappear — and why they return. The avocet, however, is probably the only one…
Bitterns
Bitterns are booming, both literally and metaphorically. These handsome brown birds from the heron family make a noise quite unlike…
Egrets
There’s an unwritten rule in newspaper journalism that any story about egrets must have one of two headlines. Either ‘no…
Catching moths
As darkness falls, a group of mainly middle-aged men set up traps of various shapes and sizes — some sophisticated…
