Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.
This week I thought I would offer advice on the sort of things one can and cannot say in public without fear of censure. I realise that I may not be the most obvious person, at this moment in time, to offer such a service. Maybe even the last person. But one has to plough
The Guardian has retracted one of the allegations it made about me in its strangely humour-free Pass Notes section on Monday. They said that I had described a footballer as a ‘spearchucking African’, whereas I was quoting what had allegedly been said about the footballer by somebody else and using that quote to justify the
People sometimes ask me, about the stuff I write: ‘Do you ever think that you get it wrong?’ The answer of course is a fervent ‘Yes!’ And even when I don’t actually KNOW that I’ve got something wrong, I’m always plagued with doubt about it. One thing I got wrong recently was the riots. Or
I’ve had a sense of humour failure, in that I find something funny which nobody else does, apparently. I’ve been watching Ricky Gervais’s new comedy, Life’s Too Short, and thought the first episode, in particular, was hilarious. But people really hate Gervais, don’t they? I haven’t yet read a decent review of the programme and
The Sepp Blatter business is interesting, an example of a very modern, very ‘now’ process. That is, the comeuppance arriving for the wrong reason, but the politically correct reason. The most obvious example in the last ten years or so was the shooting of Jean Charles De Menenez on the tube at Stockwell station. The
The typical cowardice of French journalists has prevented us from knowing the full details of that off-the-record chat between Nicolas Sarkozy and President Barack Obama — until now. Hitherto we had to make do with Sarkozy’s rather boring attack upon the Israeli leader Benyamin Netanyahu: ‘I cannot bear Netanyahu, he is a liar.’ To which
That’s it for Theresa May, isn’t it? I realise that Cameron is loathe to lose the woman, especially so recently after having (with rather less anguish) lost Dr Fox. But it seems to me, from what I’ve read, that the case against her seems fairly watertight. Brodie Clark will go to court and sooner or
I see the poor bloke who organised the rugby club firework display near the M5 is being pilloried. The Daily Mail, in particular, was anxious to fling the blame at someone for the appalling pile-up on the motorway which left seven people dead. It immediately alighted upon the fact that there had been a firework
I see that the UK Border Agency has “lost” 124,000 asylum seekers and immigrants. It has done this in exactly the same way in which I deal with begging letters from Cancer Research and that charity that wants you to help the little foreign girl with no lips. Unwilling, out of embarrassment and shame, to
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has at last spoken on the issue of the great St Paul’s Cathedral controversy, which has so far seen the departure of both the Dean of the cathedral and its canon. Dr Williams lamented the loss to the church of both men but added that the ‘issues’ raised by
Wow — two pieces in the mag this week from journalists whining about people being beastly to them on social networking sites. The first, from James Delingpole, correctly identifies Twitter as being characterised by “suppurating vileness”. Yes, that would be right. So why do it? James is a good mate and while we have certain
What is the appropriate sort of language, do you suppose, for the captain of the England football team to use in respect of his colleagues? This is an important issue and I, for one, will not sleep until a sort of resolution — a closure, if you will — has been arrived at. Because we
I think my favourite story of the day concerned the theatre-goers at Stratford-upon-Avon who were outraged that the play they had just seen contained considerable amounts of sex, violence and depravity. The play was Marat/Sade. You’d think the “Sade” bit might have given them a bit of a clue, wouldn’t you? It’s a bit like
Good to see Jonathan King winning his battle with the Stalinist BBC. The corporation had edited him out of a rerun of a 1970s Top of the Pops show, as if he had never existed. As those of us of a certain age know all too well, Mr King was an extremely regular performer on
In order to commemorate the death of Colonel Gaddafi properly, here’s a quiz about various deceased (with one exception) murderous megalomaniacs. No googling, or I’ll boil you in a vat for supper. Answers later today. 1. Which Muslim headcases wrote the following novels: a) Escape To Hellb) Begone Demons! 2. According to a popular conspiracy theory, from whose frozen
Here’s a conversation I had with an elderly Afrikaaner lady (EAL) in the main street of the whites-only town, Orania, in South Africa. Me: Hello, do you live here? EAL: No, but I am thinking of moving here. Me: Why would you want to do that? EAL: There is no crime here, it is secure.
Greetings from South Africa, where I am in the township of Orania making a film (hence my radio silence for a few days). Orania is a somewhat right-of-centre Afrikaans-only settlement; more about it in the future. One of the interesting wild animals out here in the Karoo is the Bat-Eared Fox, which is – suitably
Do you have any idea what a decision support analyst actually does for a living? This is a controversial topic because the chief operating officer of the BBC, a woman called Caroline Thomson, was unable to answer the question as to what her own decision support analysts did while they were at work. Truth be
I don’t know what source you use for your news from the US. Some will trust the BBC or Fox, two sides of the same coin. The more achingly modern will go for blogs and stuff. I trust none of it and rely entirely upon No Name Gene, who I met in a bar in
Good point made by Charlie Brooker in today’s Guardian. If the BBC wishes to save a bit of money without affecting quality of output —indeed, by improving it — the corporation should stop making vastly expensive trailers for its forthcoming programmes. Brooker says it “turns him silver with rage” when he sees these specially shot
