Russell brand

Why can’t British men flirt? This was one of my first thoughts when I arrived in England some years ago. I adore flirting. Like so many Italians, I consider flirting a way of life, an added joy to the day, as harmless, normal and pleasurable to a woman as a glass of chilled champagne at an unexpected hour. When living in Rome, I had become accustomed to that stereotypical Italian man. I’m sure you are all aware of who I am referring to: L’uomo forte. Oh, they are adorable. The subtle glances across a room, the secret smile, that turning of the head and that silent acknowledgement that if only,

Until Wednesday I couldn’t decide whether Russell Brand was a fatuous buffoon or a misunderstood genius. But then nor, I think, could he.  I’m still unsure, although I suspect that he is a lot smarter than some of those who were going into raptures on Wednesday evening because Newsnight featured a guest who was spouting a few banalities about revolution. If this seems like sour grapes on my part then so be it; but considering Brand apparently wants to be taken seriously then I think it’s only fair that his ideas are scrutinised on their merits, rather than on the fact that they came out of the mouth of a celebrity

The Foreign Secretary was left not knowing where to look at tonight’s GQ Man of the Year awards, when this parish’s very own Charles Moore declared war on the media luvvies. Invited to present the award for Writer of the Year, Hague looked noticeably relieved to hand over the gong for Moore’s epic biography of Baroness Thatcher. But the fireworks were yet to come. Taking to the stage to Elvis Costello’s She, it was a poignant moment, only to be shattered by Moore himself who decided to take a chunk out of Russell Brand for his jokes earlier about the sponsor, Hugo Boss, who infamously designed uniforms for the Nazis. While

Should we be doing more or less to help to tackle drug addiction? And does addiction even exist? Are addicts just selfish people? In this week’s View from 22 podcast, the Mail on Sunday’s Peter Hitchens and the Daily Telegraph’s Damian Thompson enter into a riveting and lively debate on this very matter (1:06). Prompted by Russell Brand’s article in this week’s Spectator magazine, the pair find some common ground but disagree wholly on the very nature of addiction. It gets heated, with Thompson calling Hitchens’ ‘sanctimony’ ‘suffocating’. Here’s a snippet: listen to ‘Hitchens vs. Thompson on addiction, 6 Mar 13’ on Audioboo http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07032013.m4a Download | iTunes | RSS UPDATE: Peter Hitchens has blogged about his

In this week’s View from 22 podcast, the Mail on Sunday’s Peter Hitchens takes on the Telegraph’s Damian Thompson about Russell Brand, drugs, and whether addiction even exists. Click here to listen.  The last time I thought about taking heroin was yesterday. I had received ‘an inconvenient truth’ from a beautiful woman. It wasn’t about climate change (I’m not that ecologically switched on). She told me she was pregnant and it wasn’t mine. I had to take immediate action. I put Morrissey on in my car and as I wound my way through the neurotic Hollywood hills my misery burgeoned. Soon I could no longer see where I ended and the pain

From a wedding to an awards ceremony, no self-respecting Los Angeles beano can take place without endless fixtures around the main event. The Oscars barely get a look in between a clutch of warm-ups and afterparties. The Friday night (Oscar night being Sunday) is traditionally the preserve of the agents, the most high-profile of whom throw open the doors of their Hollywood homes to their clients — and no one else. It was a rarity, then, that at the party given by the super-agent Ari Emanuel, stars (‘Talent’, in the argot) schmoozed and ate macaroni cheese with a certain number of the not-so-famous (‘civilians’). Marooned somewhere between Dustin Hoffman and