All’s not well that ends not well
My most important new year’s resolution was cast aside this week. I had vowed that in 2022 I would eschew…
What Russia really wants
You have the advantage over me. It may be that you are reading this now in your makeshift fallout shelter,…
Black Country, New Road: Ants From Up There
Grade: A+ It is not true, fellow boomers, that there is nothing new under the sun nor no good new…
Nicola Sturgeon’s last laugh
I was delighted to discover that the University of Bristol has been advising students how to address those who identify…
Crisis? What crisis?
When a political party is hit by a crisis, the tendency these days is for both the politicians and their…
Jethro Tull: The Zealot Gene
Grade: C+ I bought the ‘seminal’ Jethro Tull double album Thick as a Brickfrom a secondhand shop when I…
The freedom to be wrong
I must offer my support to Luke Main and Dr Joanna Brunker, who as a consequence of their fervent Christian…
The trouble with Auntie
An incalculable number of trees have been hewn down recently in order to provide paper for people writing lengthy, largely…
Looking back in anger
What Keir Starmer should have said, but didn’t, was that he had indeed drunk some beer in a frowsy Labour…
The truth about that No. 10 party
People seem surprised and a little doubting that the Prime Minister is incapable of remembering if he attended a party…
Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Barn
Grade: A I have persisted in buying everything Neil Young releases since I first heard On the Beach as a…
A barking approach
We are considering privatising or selling off our dog, Jessie. She seemed a rather wonderful idea when we got her…
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…
