When is a democracy not a democracy?
Displaying the pristine neutrality that has made her such a popular figure, Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis apparently tweeted the following last…
Ranges from the slight to the first-rate: Neil Young’s Homegrown reviewed
Grade: B+ Neil Young has been mining his own past very profitably for a long time now, disinterring a seemingly…
To understand the past, you need to inhabit it for a while
‘It’s no go my honey love, it’s no go my poppet; Work your hands from day to day, the winds…
The police have become too politicised to function
Forces have become too politicised to function
Contains the loveliest new song I've heard in decades: Bob Dylan's new album reviewed
Grade: A ‘Rough’ in terms of the mostly spoken vocals, but only ‘rowdy’ if you’re approaching your 80th birthday, which…
Does anyone think Boris has handled this well?
I don’t know what’s happened to our football hooligans. The modern malaise, I suppose. A gradual descent into ineffectuality. Back…
A rabbi stabbed, but no hate crime?
A mystery has occurred. In The Affluent People’s Republic of North London, a rabbi was stabbed on the street multiple…
The closing down of debate worries me most
The Eastern Orthodox Church has decided that yoga is incompatible with Christianity. This is an enormous problem for me, as…
Skates on the edge of parody: The 1975's Notes on a Conditional Form reviewed
Grade: B+ Just what you wanted. An opening track that matches banal piano noodling to an address by Greta Thunberg.…
The real problem with Newsnight
The Twitter feed of BBC Newsnight editor Esme Wren (remember, I read this stuff so you don’t have to) is…
We can’t see the wood for the trees
I was relieved to discover, earlier this week, that the Prime Minister’s special adviser, Dominic Cummings, was a symbol of…
Why schools should stay shut
Has the stock of any politician fallen more sharply, these past three or four years, than that of Shami Chakrabarti?…
In defence of the lockdown
I realised things were getting back to normal when I threw away a third of a tin of chopped tomatoes…
The politics of book shelves
I pulled a Canadian girl in a nightclub, back when I was in my very early twenties. She seemed very…
Beautiful voice, pretentious album: Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters reviewed
Grade: C+ Where did they all come from, the quirky yet meaningful rock chicks who don’t have a decent song…
This crisis will be decided by politics, not science
One of the strangest developments to have occurred during this very strange time is that the Prime Minister’s special adviser,…
Our impatience will end the lockdown
At the farm shop this morning there was a chap panic-buying a large metal and plaster flamingo. It was the…
Would Churchill have worn a face mask?
The problem with face masks is cutting an opening of the right size to accommodate a cigarette, without the hole…
There’s nothing equal about this virus
Filthy germ-laden townsfolk were out and about on the footpaths near my home on Easter Sunday, dragging with them their…
Haunting and beautiful: Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus’s Songs of Yearning reviewed
Grade: A It has taken 33 years — during which time this decidedly strange Liverpool collective have put out only…
If anything is ‘essential’ right now, it’s cigarettes
The owners of my local grocery shop, a mile or so from my house, very kindly sell me cigarettes in…
The corona curtain-twitchers are watching
Welcome, then, to a country in which the police send drones to humiliate people taking a walk and dried pasta…
What a relief to no longer have to pretend to be sociable
Hulking fat chavs pushing shopping trolleys full of lavatory paper back to their Nissan Micras. I can’t think of a…
Britain has its first punk-rock government
The most surprising thing about the letter from Guardian and Observer journalists moaning about Suzanne Moore’s supposed ‘transphobia’ is that…
A guide to coronavirus hoarding
We have now got past the absurd stage of glaring in a reproachful manner at Chinese people on the tube.…
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