Identity politics

The faux Leonardo that sold for 400 million greenbacks — plus a 50 million fee for Christie’s — was a subject dissected again and again by the glitterati at two rather splendid dinners given in the Bagel by George Livanos and Mick Flick. My fellow guests were not the types to be outraged or shocked at the obscenity of the amount of moolah involved, but it beat talking about the weather or why the media hate Trump as much as they do. For any of you who might have missed it, the Leonardo — originally thought to have been painted by Leo’s pupil Giovanni Boltraffio — was partly painted over,

The assignment of books for review has always been haphazard. Fellow fiction writers can be tempted either to undermine the competition, or to flatter colleagues who might later judge prizes or provide boosting blurbs. There are no clear qualifications for book reviewing — perhaps publication, but most of all, because reviewers are paid for their text but not for the many hours it takes to read the bleeding books, a willingness to work for atrocious wages. Mitigating the gravity of this matter? Aside from the authors whose work is on the block, almost no one reads book reviews, and I say that as someone who writes a fair number. It’s

I wish I could say that some of my best friends are working-class, but it’s not true. I do have Dave — my plumber and political sparring partner. Bright and well informed about politics, Dave loves to tease me because I live in Islington, I read the Guardian, I eat organic food and I was against Brexit. In the Dave scheme of things I represent Islington Man — one of those snooty, sneery liberal elitists who looks down on people like Dave. Actually, Dave looks down on people like me. He’s a plumber who earns far more money than I do. Dave does not have a white van; he has

A declaration of nationality is a profound statement. To say ‘I am British’ suggests that somehow I am composed of Britishness — that my fabric, my very being, is British. Except I personally, apparently, am not particularly British. The results are back from my DNA ethnicity test, and I am 63 per cent Irish, 20 per cent Western European, 11 per cent Scandinavian and 3 per cent Iberian. How do I feel about my nationality now? Half a test-tube of saliva was all it took for Ancestry, the genealogical organisation, to come up with these figures and, once you get results like this, the immediate reaction is to say: ‘Well it doesn’t

What a pleasure it is to see the Hollywood actor Sean Penn neck deep in PC ordure. The rodentine thespian was handing out an award at the Oscars to his friend the Mexican film director Alejandro González Iñárritu, for his film Birdman. ‘Who gave this sonofabitch a green card?’ Penn quipped about his mate — at which point the moronsphere went into overdrive. There was splenetic fury and deep sadness and heartfelt outrage and condemnations at this racism, online and beyond. Some demented loon called Stephen W. Thrasher, writing in the Guardian (natch), said: ‘Racism from friends assumed to be benign can be the worst kind, especially at an awards show.’