Why are hipsters obsessed with programmes about dead women?

I’ve pointed out before that to be a woman who sucks up to Islamic extremists is to be a somewhat upmarket but equally self-deluded political equivalent of those strange women who write love-letters to incarcerated rapists and serial killers of women.

I’ve recently spotted another septic sister-under-the-skin, though I imagine this one will be better-dressed and better-read. She is the consumer of the recent glut of ‘Death of a Woman as Hipster Diversion’ programmes: Serial, Undisclosed, Making A Murderer, The Jinx. This is true crime for those who know how to pronounce quinoa, but it is no less nasty a habit. Those who indulge in this particular ‘guilty pleasure’ should, indeed, feel guilty about it.

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Melanie McDonagh

When will the BBC stop adapting Julia Donaldson books?

I first became aware of this breed of seat-sfniffer way back in the last century, when some ghastly grand dame restaurant owner mentioned in a magazine questionnaire that her favourite way to spend an evening in was with something eggy on a tray ‘and something fascinating on TV, like the O.