Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.
On the wooden jetty from which the ferry used to depart for the little island of Utoya, there stood for a while a small obelisk around which people deposited flowers. ‘If one man can show this much hate, imagine how much love we can show together’ was the marvellously trite inscription on the obelisk: vapid
I have not watched the BBC’s new period drama Ridley Road because I knew it would be impossible for the corporation to commission any series about anything without grafting onto it facile and usually pig-ignorant observations which suggest that history always reveals that the BBC left-liberal mindset is right about everything. So it seems to
We can suffer a lethal pandemic with lockdowns, petrol shortages and supermarket shelves almost entirely denuded of sausages. But when Facebook and its various ahellspawn offspring go down for seven hours, the country is sent into a tailspin of misery and confusion. On Monday, Facebook users could be seen out on the streets of our
One day quite soon someone at a petrol pump is going to get a tyre iron wrapped around their head. It will almost certainly be the middle-aged male driver of a Land Rover Discovery — a flatulent showboating car driven almost exclusively by smug pigs — while he is busy filling up his 16 jerry
Grade: B– The first time Lindsey Buckingham had a big falling out with Stevie Nicks we at least got some half-decent, if occasionally soporific, music out of it. That was Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, a soft-limbed, coked-up AOR colossus that for many defines mid-1970s music. It contained Buckingham’s finest moment, ‘Go Your Own Way’ — the
Two weeks have passed and somehow James Conway is still in a job. He is the director of the English Touring Opera, despite having fired 14 of its musicians because they were born with the wrong colour of skin. These middle- to late-career musicians were presented with a letter from James informing them that henceforth
I noticed with interest that Gigalum island — off the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll — was up for sale for half a million quid or so. Nineteen rather barren acres, slightly warmed by the Gulf Stream. These little parcels of desolation quite often become available for purchase and I do wonder if Gigalum should be
I noticed with interest that Gigalum island — off the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll — was up for sale for half a million quid or so. Nineteen rather barren acres, slightly warmed by the Gulf Stream. These little parcels of desolation quite often become available for purchase and I do wonder if Gigalum should be
There is a rather sweet moment in the middle of each Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown show where, after some magnificently obscene one-liner, he addresses the howling audience. ‘I love you people,’ he says. ‘Just like me, you’re rough.’ The audience laughs and applauds at this observation of itself. The wall is broken and the performer and
Grade: C– The nicest thing one can say is that this is a marginally better album than we would have got from either of the other two presidential candidates. Just about. But sheesh, it’s still nearly two hours of the most repetitive, spiritless, god-bothering music you will ever hear, full of portentousness and self-pity and
I suspect that there are no people in the world quite so right-on as the Nobel prize committee members. A bunch of affirmative-action hand-wringing Scandies, desperate to prove that they are woker than thou. This mindset brought the Nobel peace prize to Barack Obama before he had actually done anything, if you remember. He later
The Americans may have pulled out, but luckily the Afghans have the world’s vibrant community of witches intervening to save them. A website for these practitioners of the black arts has devoted its entire attention to the Taliban. One witch commented: ‘It seems like the Taliban gets most of their power from Allah. If we
I have the feeling that Joe Biden will have to wait a while before he receives his Nobel Peace Prize, the traditional gift bestowed upon an American president if he’s a Democrat and before he’s actually done anything. The civilised world — by which I mean the mass of deluded lefties and liberals who understand
The literary sensation of the season is apparently a book called The Constant Rabbit, by Jasper Fforde. In brief, a spontaneous and unexplained anthropomorphic event which occurred 55 years ago has left Britain with a population of more than one million human-sized rabbits who can speak, read, watch television etc. They live among us. The
Grade: C+ Time to get the razor out again — Billie’s back. The slurred and affected can’t-be-arsed-to-get-out-of-bed vocals. The relentless, catatonic introspection, self-pity and boilerplate psychological insights. The queen of sadgurls has a new album — and yes, of course, the title is the closest Billie has ever come to making a joke. Of course
Last month an epidemiologist called Professor Michael Baker described the UK government’s decision to free its people from Covid restrictions on 19 July as ‘barbaric’ and an ‘experiment’. Professor Baker lives in the little-known hermit kingdom of New Zealand — a country which, under the guidance of people like himself, has banned almost all foreign
I think I would like to apologise for this article in case someone who reads it takes offence. I will not mean the apology, of course — it will simply be an attempt to get me out of the mess occasioned by own words. It will not get me out of the mess, however, but
I wonder if the moral guardians of our country — the England football team — intend to participate in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar? Most of the players are currently kicking their heels (and presumably missing) in such places as the Turks and Caicos Islands, so they have plenty of time for rumination. Having
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is planning to install a statue of John Chilembwe in Trafalgar Square. Mr Chilembwe was a Malawian Baptist famous for, among other things, leading an uprising where the head of a Scottish farmer was chopped off and put on a pole. He is much revered in his home country
England: 1 (Shaw) Italy: 1 (Swarthy cheat) England had it and threw it away. Much the better side in the first half, finding acres of space along the right flank. But the Italian manager, Roberto Mancini, recognised the problem and changed the game. As Italy swarmed forward in the second half, Gareth Southgate had no
