Satire
P.J. O’Rourke’s death marks the end of a great satirical era
Fond memories of the great satirist
Scholars and spectres: The Runes Have Been Cast, by Robert Irwin, reviewed
It could be said that the power of a horror story depends on the possibility, however minute, of it being…
A book trade romp: Sour Grapes, by Dan Rhodes, reviewed
Dan Rhodes’s career might be regarded as an object lesson in How Not to Get Ahead in Publishing. Our man…
Up there with Succession and Chernobyl: The White Lotus, Sky Atlantic, reviewed
Every now and then, you see a new series — Succession, say, or Chernobyl or To the Lake — which…
A mighty contest from trivial things — the quarrel between Alexander Pope and Edmund Curll
Rapid technological advance, a dark underworld of uncensored publishing, a threatened rupture with Scotland, even fears of a new outbreak…
Praise be to our benevolent Big Tech Overlords
It is done. The Dark Lord has been vanquished. His threatening aura has been purged from Twitter, along with many…
A conciliatory P.J. O’Rourke is not the satirist we know and love
There was an acidic bravura and beauty in P.J. O’Rourke’s early journalism and a gleefulness in the ease with which…
Letter from the online trenches
November 7, 2020 To my dear parents, Victory. Uttering the word feels strange after four long years of battle. But…
Enough plotlines to power several seasons of The West Wing: BBC1's Roadkill reviewed
Like many a political thriller before it, BBC1’s Roadkill began with a politician emerging into the daylight to face a…
Antifa for Biden
Hey folks, it’s me, your friendly neighborhood antifa ringleader. You may recognize me from such news clips as ‘Small group…
What stunts should we expect to see at future State of the Unions?
The State of the Union is like that annual meeting where the boss says it was a triumphant year as…
Fabulous and enthralling: Parasite reviewed
Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite won the Bafta for best foreign film and is up for six Oscars and it is an…
The art of pregnancy
Pregnancy has always been a public spectacle – and as the Foundling Museum’s new exhibition shows, a dangerous one
My evening with the Bernie Bros
The stench of beer and cheap deodorant filled the bar in which the ‘Bernie Bros’ were meeting. The scene looked…
Dave Eggers’s satire on Trump is somewhat heavy-handed: The Captain and the Glory reviewed
A feckless moron is appointed to the captaincy of a ship, despite having no nautical experience. The Captain has a…
Letters: How to squash a Speaker
No special protection Sir: Rod Liddle’s joke that the election might be held on a date when Muslims cannot vote,…
Ian McEwan’s anti-Brexit satire is a damp squib
Kafka wrote a novella, The Metamorphosis, about a man who finds himself transformed into a beetle. Now Ian McEwan has…
Earth dying in five billion years I can deal with, but not a world-weary Brian Cox
When you see the opening caption ‘4.6 billion years ago’, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re watching a programme…
A tease for #MeToo
Titania McGrath is the alter ego of the schoolteacher Andrew Doyle. A perpetually enraged ‘activist, healer and radical intersectional poet’,…
Fun at the EU’s expense: The Capital, by Robert Menasse, reviewed
Stendhal likened politics in literature to a pistol-shot in a concert: crude, but compelling. When that politics largely consists of…
From ancient Egyptian smut to dissent-by-currency: I object at the British Museum reviewed
‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear,’…
Sacha Baron Cohen isn’t funny – especially when he’s mocking the powerless
Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest series Who Is America? isn’t funny. But then, nor was his terrible 2016 movie The Brothers…
What’s the point of Philomena Cunk?
Because I’m a miserable old reactionary determined to see a sinister Guardianista plot in every BBC programme I watch, I…
A chance to see the Moomins’ creator for the genius she really was: Tove Janssons reviewed
Tove Jansson, according to her niece’s husband, was a squirt in size and could rarely be persuaded to eat, preferring…
The many sides of satire
Brexit the Musical is a peppy satire written by Chris Bryant (not the MP, he’s a lawyer). Musically the show…
