Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.
I took the Caledonian sleeper train from London Euston to Glasgow on Sunday night. This is what the train did: it left Euston at 2330 and made its way to just south of Watford Junction, where it waited for twenty minutes. Then it went back south, on a different line, to just north of Kings
At last we crusaders for truth can reveal exactly what happened when a famous footballer who is married met the former Big Brother contestant, Imogen Thomas. I suppose you could guess what happened, but it’s better to know for sure, isn’t it? Don’t worry, we’ll use phrases like ‘asked her to perform a sex act’
I suppose it’s wrong to lock people up for crimes they didn’t commit. But nonetheless, if George Davis had served his full sentence for an armed robbery which he probably didn’t commit in 1975, then he wouldn’t have been able to take part in the armed robbery on the Bank of Cyprus two years later,
Tired of the BBC’s bias over the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? So too is The Guardian, and a new book More Bad News from Israel by Greg Philo and Mike Berry. However, their weariness is with what they see as the BBC’s pro-Israeli bias. Berry and Philo, according to The Guardian, “find that the Israeli explanation of
I think we’re all very relieved that Vicky Pryce, the estranged wife of the Cabinet minister Chris Huhne, is not motivated by revenge in writing a book about her ex-husband and dobbing him in to the police. I think we’re all very relieved that Vicky Pryce, the estranged wife of the Cabinet minister Chris Huhne,
I had rather high hopes when I learned that there was to be a “Slut Walk” through London in a couple of weeks. However, it transpires that they are not proper honest to God sluts at all, but very angry women in dungarees who will most likely not be up for it, so to speak.
Well, knock me down with a Ferrari, who’d have thought it? Jemima Khan and Jeremy Clarkson! The fragrant, pouting Mima — epitome of well-bred, bankrolled, metro liberal hand-wringing faux angst — getting it on with the dishevelled reactionary so far to the right-of-centre-he’s-almost-in-the-median-strip petrolhead Jeremy. Well, knock me down with a Ferrari, who’d have thought
Children’s literature is sexist, has too many male heroes and represents the “symbolic annihilation of women”, according to a deranged woman writing in the latest edition of my favourite journal, “Gender And Society”. Janice McCabe singles out poor Winnie-the-Pooh for particular scorn, although she also has a go at that misogynistic bastard, Peter Rabbit. But
I know that Wills married Kate last weekend because I saw it with my own eyes. I didn’t have much choice in the matter because my wife was camped out in front of the TV for 12 hours being catty about Victoria Beckham’s Croydon facelift and stupid hat and generously summoning me in whenever Lady
I voted no to AV (postal vote) for a bunch of reasons; the first, and probably most important, is that nobody really wants it. The British public has not been clamouring for constitutional change; as we know, the vote is simply a device to facilitate the coalition. The Lib Dems don’t really want it –
There was a very funny joke told by the slightly weird American comedian Emo Philips a dozen or so years ago. He was talking about his German girlfriend, and how she loved being in New York. What she loved best, he said, were those New York bagels, she couldn’t get enough of them. “And you
After a top secret operation costing a lot of money and carried out by myself, I can reveal that I have at last killed Adolf Hitler, the man responsible for the second world war. Only hours after the American government told a jubilant world that its special forces had killed the evil Muslim murderer, Osama
An interesting piece, a week or so back, from Matthew Parris in the magazine – sorry I haven’t got around to it before now. There are columns I read immediately in The Spectator and others which I lay down like a fine wine to mellow for a while, perhaps for months or even years, always
The Preston North End striker, Nathan Ellington, who is black, has complained about the abuse he received while playing, briefly, for his club against Millwall on Saturday. On that medium for the half-witted and forlorn, Twitter, he said the Millwall crowd were “a disgrace to the human race,” and added: “Monkey noises and Calling (sic)
Why does everyone think that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is so clever? Is it just the beard? Maybe if you nailed a beard onto Wayne Rooney people would start saying he was clever too, rather than thinking him a truculent potato-headed troll with learning difficulties. Beards are a mask, a diversionary tactic. If
What, to your mind, constitutes a ‘hate crime’? I’ve been wondering about this since reading the comments of Paul Marshall, of the Cumbria CID. What, to your mind, constitutes a ‘hate crime’? I’ve been wondering about this since reading the comments of Paul Marshall, of the Cumbria CID. Paul had been expressing his great satisfaction
Lord Carlile has attacked unelected Strasbourg judges for making too narrow an interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights and thus coming into conflict with the British parliament. His main area of concern has been the way in which the Euro judges prevent us from chucking out illegal asylum seekers, foreign criminals and potential
The right-wing historian Niall Ferguson is very handsome, isn’t he? If I were a woman, or a homosexual, I would certainly set my cap at him; I would let him order for me in restaurants and handle me brusquely in the bedroom as he revealed to me the full tumescent glory of his ‘killer app’,
Sad to hear of the death of Sidney Lumet, whose films, for the most part, I enjoyed. His most famous – 12 Angry Men – was certainly compelling, claustrophobic and actorly; a little like a very early version of the wonderful Glengarry Glen Ross, in its reliance upon dialogue and nuance. Hardly a surprise that
Are women to blame for almost everything, as the Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts, seems to think? I would not lightly discount the possibility; they can, after all, be terribly trying. They are certainly to blame for most of the bad things which have happened in my life, if you discount
