Ed Sheeran: = (Christmas edition)
Grade: C= My wife’s ill with Covid and demanding inexhaustible libations and difficult meals, which she will leave uneaten. The…
Meeting the mob
My abiding memory of this fairly appalling year is of the face of the young student at Durham University who…
My plan for young people
I have been reading 39 Ways To Save The Planet by the BBC journalist Tom Heap, which includes such ingenious…
Life online is about to get even worse
No sooner had an inch or two of snow fallen on our upland areas last week than the climate-change Morlocks…
Keeping up appearances
A Church of England primary school in Richmond, London, has junked Sir Winston Churchill and J.K. Rowling as names for…
Adele: 30
Grade: C The problem I have is that I thought she was pretty awful before — when she was just…
In praise of stigma
Exciting news from Durham University, which is helping its students to become ‘sex workers’. This noble institution is offering two…
Beach House: Once Twice Melody
Grade: B+ Everything these days devolves to prog — and not always very good prog. Where once synths were vastly…
The root of the problem
I was intrigued to learn that Kamala Harris, the Vice President of the US, is worried about racist trees. I…
Oh dear, Abba’s new album is a bit of a dog: Voyage reviewed
Time has been very kind to Abba. No one back in the 1970s thought of them as geniuses. But they've even lost the talent for writing memorable tunes
Who owns the language?
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is giving local residents £25,000 grants to enable them to change the names of…
The ideology of madness
On the wooden jetty from which the ferry used to depart for the little island of Utoya, there stood for…
Israel has been spared Sally Rooney
I have not watched the BBC’s new period drama Ridley Road because I knew it would be impossible for the…
Blame it all on the middle-class drug users
We can suffer a lethal pandemic with lockdowns, petrol shortages and supermarket shelves almost entirely denuded of sausages. But when…
Labour has gone back to 1983
One day quite soon someone at a petrol pump is going to get a tyre iron wrapped around their head.…
Lindsey Buckingham: Lindsey Buckingham
Grade: B– The first time Lindsey Buckingham had a big falling out with Stevie Nicks we at least got some…
The war against intelligence
Two weeks have passed and somehow James Conway is still in a job. He is the director of the English…
Let’s have more diversity at the BBC
I noticed with interest that Gigalum island — off the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll — was up for sale for…
The political power of Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown
There is a rather sweet moment in the middle of each Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown show where, after some magnificently obscene…
Kanye West: Donda
Grade: C– The nicest thing one can say is that this is a marginally better album than we would have…
The Nobel truth
I suspect that there are no people in the world quite so right-on as the Nobel prize committee members. A…
I blame Tony Blair
The Americans may have pulled out, but luckily the Afghans have the world’s vibrant community of witches intervening to save…
Berks and burkas
I have the feeling that Joe Biden will have to wait a while before he receives his Nobel Peace Prize,…
Down the rabbit hole
The literary sensation of the season is apparently a book called The Constant Rabbit, by Jasper Fforde. In brief, a…
Billie Eilish: Happier Than Ever
Grade: C+ Time to get the razor out again — Billie’s back. The slurred and affected can’t-be-arsed-to-get-out-of-bed vocals. The relentless,…
