Television
Why is a BBC executive calling for the removal of middle-aged white men from television?
Cassian Harrison, the editor of BBC Four, told the Edinburgh International Television Festival last week that no one wants to…
Paranoia and The Woman in White
I sat up with a jerk, after contemplating the wallpaper in the television dramatisation of The Woman in White, when…
Toby Young: I’ve been unmanned by a tennis brute in bright pink
As regular readers will know, Caroline has developed a fanatical interest in tennis and is currently captain of the ladies…
What on earth was The Prisoner all about?
Now, if someone were to spray stun gas through the keyhole of my front door, and I were to collapse…
Lovely to look at but irritatingly pious: The Miniaturist reviewed
BBC1’s The Miniaturist (26/7 December) is a lavish two-part adaptation of Jessie Burton’s bestseller. It’s also further proof that almost…
The idiot box
How to sum up David Frost? The lazy writer’s friend, aka Wikipedia, calls him ‘an English journalist, comedian, writer, media…
The dwarves of death who control your TV
My own fault, I suppose, for turning on the television. Not an action I undertake very regularly these days, because…
Real life
Two months after I cancelled Sky, a strange letter arrived in the post. ‘We are writing to you because we…
Warning: top-performing funds are highly likely to contain tobacco
Axa will no longer invest in the tobacco industry: the French insurance giant will sell €184 million of shares and…
Diary
I’m a lucky man. My novel House of Cards transformed my life, yet I wrote it almost by accident nearly…
Diary
I’m counting ‘Wows!’ Suddenly everyone is using this irritating expletive expressing incredulity, amazement and nothing at all. I’ve heard it…
Socrates and Galen on the Great British Bake Off
As the national girth expands by the second, Auntie, never backward about lecturing us on the topic, continues to glory…
Long life
When Robert Peston, the economics editor of the BBC, interviewed George Osborne on television in an open-necked shirt with collar…
Barometer
Rogue traders Former UBS trader Tom Hayes was jailed for 14 years for rigging the Libor market. How long could…
Let’s pay for the BBC content we use
What follows is a proposal for reducing the BBC licence fee and improving the corporation’s output while saving the British…
Diary
There’s nothing quite like a First Night — and last Friday we launched the Proms, the most celebrated classical music…
The questions you don’t ask at the BBC
There was a remarkable scene in one BBC Today programme morning meeting in about 1995, as all the producers gathered…
Barometer
Dropping the Clangers The Clangers made a comeback on BBC television. Some Clanger facts: — The actors doing the voices…
Reality check
Why I had to say no to Celebrity Big Brother
Washington Notebook
This week has been all about the election, the US presidential election that is. It is 18 months away but…
High life
It’s a famous quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald, one that Elton John should ponder (when he’s not out shopping, that…
Barometer
Watching brief Samsung warned users of its voice-activated televisions that what they said in front of the TV could be…
Saint Joan and the treacherous phone
My time with Joan Collins was wonderful – except for one mortifying moment
Thatcher’s soap
How EastEnders became a positive reflection of Tory values
Sir Ian Botham is a hero – and a fool
Mark Mason 28 November 2015 9:00 am
In 1981, when I was ten and Ian Botham was 26, I thought he was God. Now, the week after…