This week I wanted to tell you about my amazing dad. He hasn’t died or anything. I just thought I’d get in there with my panegyric quick while he’s still got most of his marbles and before he’s lying in a coffin quite deaf to all the nice stuff I’m about to say about him.
My first act upon returning from my holiday was to sign the online petition to have the supremely irritating children’s cartoon figure Peppa Pig banned from television. I have always found the creature half-witted, arrogant and sinister, and the tune which accompanies her exploits is both grating and didactic. Further, even allowing for the usual
When Mary Jane Mowat remarked recently that rape conviction statistics would not improve ‘until women stop getting so drunk,’ the retired Crown Court judge knew there would be a row. It followed. The judge, knowing that only 60 per cent of rape charges that reach court end in conviction, was making a narrow point. There
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_4_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman, Emma Barnett and Jamie Bartlett discuss the leaked photos” startat=1312] Listen [/audioplayer]‘If you click on Jennifer Lawrence’s naked pictures,’ said the headline on the Guardian’s website, ‘you’re perpetuating her abuse.’ That gave me pause. Even though I haven’t. In all honesty, I haven’t even had the opportunity, and I thought I
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_28_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman and Mats Persson discuss Cameron’s European way ” startat=830] Listen [/audioplayer]David Cameron loathes European Union summits, and with reason: they seldom go well for him. He has been ambushed by the French, betrayed by the Germans, seduced by the Swedes and even outsmarted by a Luxembourger — Jean-Claude Juncker, whom he
‘Outspoken comic Frankie Boyle has called on the BBC to sack “cultural tumour” Jeremy Clarkson.’ Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with this opening sentence from a recent news report? Clue: it’s that first word. In order to qualify as ‘outspoken’, surely, you need to be the kind of person who fearlessly, frequently and vociferously
It was clear that things were going wrong for David Cameron when he had to say that his position on Iraq was ‘very, very simple’. To use that phrase was to admit that things had become very, very muddled. They remain so now. The Prime Minister started the week with a robust line on the
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_21_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Julie Burchill and Louise Mensch discuss whether ‘The One’ exists” startat=1773] Listen [/audioplayer]Pity the modern starlet. Be she steaming-hot pop-tart or reality-show show-off, her range of emotional experiences will, thanks mostly to the gentlemen of the press, be strictly limited. She will have ‘lonely hells’ (often but not always linked to ‘drug hells’),
Poor Julian Assange. Call me a contrarian but I’m genuinely starting to feel sorry for the guy. He’s just made such a mess of his life, hasn’t he? And with such promise. Only a few short years ago he was the world’s most prominent anti-everything activist, with hair like an indie guitarist, feted and worshipped
Having written (for a Times diary) a few sentences about consciousness in robots, I settled back to study readers’ responses in the online commentary section. They added little. I was claiming there had been no progress since Descartes and Berkeley in the classic philosophical debate about how we know ‘Other Minds’ exist; and that there
Mark Simmonds has been in politics long enough to know not to expect much sympathy from his constituents. He resigned as a Foreign Office minister this week because his £89,435 ministerial salary was not enough — at least, not enough for him to keep a family home in London. Many of those who live and
For my 49th birthday treat, I went to see Shakespeare in Love at the Noël Coward theatre in London. Expensive but worth it: spry, funny, uplifting and moving but also, for all the surface froth, quite a deep meditation on the creative process and the enduring power of art. What everyone secretly loves best about
I was attacked by a swan the other day, as I walked along the bank of the River Stour in Kent. The creature climbed out of the water and lunged towards me, wings puffed up, making this guttural and hate-filled coughing noise. I kicked out at its stupid neck and told it to fuck off
Is your life saturated with racial meaning? The most common answer to this question, when I ask friends and acquaintances, and sometimes people in the street going about their business, is: ‘Your inquiry makes no sense whatsoever. It sounds like the sort of pretentious and thoroughly bogus question dreamed up by some idiotic sociology lecturer
There’s a little bit of a fascist in all of us. For some, the tragedy of human want may provoke an impatient urge to expropriate and centralise for the more efficient use of economic resources. Others, alarmed at the world’s exploding population, may be attracted by calls for a programme of mass compulsory sterilisation. But
This is to be one of those columns that makes the writer faintly wish there wasn’t an internet. It would be one thing merely in print — ephemeral, swiftly forgotten, to be stumbled across only by like-minded individuals en route from Charles Moore to Taki — but online I fear there may be sniggering. ‘What
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_31_July_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Alex Massie discuss the election and the Scottish referendum” startat=1808] Listen [/audioplayer]At this time of year, whenever you see a British politician looking particularly busy, you can take it as a sign that they are about to go off on holiday. In this puritanical age, nearly all political leaders are
Is it ever appropriate to use the word ‘slut’? I always take my lead from the Prime Minister and he has assured the country that it is never appropriate or acceptable, so henceforth I shall desist from employing the term. If, one evening, I come home from work to find my wife, naked, cheerfully and
This has been a terrible year for horseflies. It’s bad enough if you’re human: often by the time you swat them off the damage has already been wrought by their revolting, cutting mandibles and it’s not till 24 hours later, I find, that the bite reaches peak unpleasantness, swelling into a huge itchy dome which
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_24_July_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Paul Goodman discuss why so many MPs are leaving the Commons” startat=873] Listen [/audioplayer]The House of Commons is off for the summer. But few MPs and ministers expect to make it through to September without the House being recalled because of the grim international situation. This has been the worst
