Social media
Real life
‘My phone says I can’t go out until Tuesday, so I can’t come and meet you,’ said my friend. And…
The problem with ‘David’s law’
Two members of parliament have been killed in the past five and a half years. This, one long-serving MP laments,…
The Facebook empire is beginning to crumble
When empires crumble they slide slowly at first, then the temple walls come crashing down. Facebook is not quite at…
High life
Do any of you remember the time when everything took place on the terraces and in outdoor cafés? Before everyone…
Blue-tick Twitter is spoiling Emma Raducanu’s victory
How do you take the pleasure out of something so marvellous and joyful as Emma Raducanu’s US open victory last…
Memory sticks
Technology is robbing us of the power to forget
Phishing trip
I was held to ransom by hackers
Such tweet sorrow
The distinction between on and offline life blurred long ago. The greatest spats, sexual self-fashionings and mad soliloquies now unfurl…
Isn’t it time social media cracked down on racism?
No sooner had Bukayo Saka’s penalty kick thudded into the gloves of the Italian goalkeeper than you could see it…
The bogus business of stigma-busting
Our society is bristling with social stigmas, we’re told, even in the progressive West, even in London. Life is so…
Beware Boris’s sinister crackdown on free speech
A Conservative government that boasts it is a defender of free speech against the attacks of ‘the woke’ is about…
Big Tech is turning into Big Brother
The Big Tech social media giants are having to rethink their policy of censoring anybody who suggests that Covid originated…
Page turner
How TikTok can make a book a bestseller
The arrival of Godot
A Russian Doll is a monologue about Putin’s campaign to swing the Brexit vote in his favour. It stars Rachel…
Video nasty
The TikTokisation of global politics
A new cottage industry
Cottagecore, not to be confused with cottaging, is an aspirational lifestyle trend. The word is relatively new —although you’ll find…
Woman of the cloth
Laura Freeman considers how artists have depicted one of the strangest and most touching of the Stations of the Cross
Wilde at heart
BKLYN — The Musical gives itself a headache for no reason. What does ‘BKLYN’ mean? Perhaps it’s a random jumble…
The turf
Thanks to Covid, there could be no spine-tingling roar at the Cheltenham Festival this year as the first race runners…
Twitter, but with actual screaming
For my 13th birthday in 1995 I requested — and got — my own ‘line’. This meant that I could…
Advance warning
Too much weight is put on the idea of ‘progress’
Into the jaws of hell
Southwark Playhouse is beating the latest lockdown with a zingy new musical about social media. The performers, Francesca Forristal and…
The big tech bullies
I was in the kitchen preparing the family’s dinner when the inauguration of Joe Biden was on TV, so I…
Gulf stream
Instagramming from Dubai isn’t ‘work’
Control, halt, delete
Can anyone stand up to big tech?
