Christina Patterson

Christina Patterson is a writer, broadcaster and columnist. She writes about politics, society, culture, travel, books and the arts. She has interviewed writers and artists ranging from Martin Amis to Eddie Izzard and Werner Herzog, and did the first interview after he left office with Gordon Brown. A former director of the Poetry Society, and literary programmer at the Southbank Centre, she has written for the Observer, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, Time, the Spectator and the New Statesman. She’s a regular commentator on radio and TV news programmes, a regular reviewer on the Sky News press preview, and a regular guest on The Review Show. She has campaigned to improve standards in nursing in a series of articles in the Independent, by speaking at conferences, and in programmes she has made for Radio 4 and The One Show. Christina is the only woman on the shortlist for the Orwell Prize 2013. She has now left The Independent, but can be contacted via her website, www.christinapatterson.co.uk .

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The Queen waves to the crowds from the Buckingham Palace balcony

Christina Patterson: The Queen did her duty... and they loved her for it

The climax of three days of celebration served to demonstrate why, 60 years on, she remains so popular

Christina Patterson: Pasties were hot, now they're not. Time to cook up a Plan B instead

This Government has done more tinkering than most. It seems to have decided to do thinking after, and tinkering first

Christina Patterson: Fearful people don't spend, and that's a burden as big as red tape

Private sector workers don't understand why it's hard to sack someone in the public sector

On stage: Poet Shakila Azizzada

Persian poetry power: Writers are bringing the spirit of Iran's verse to Britain

In Iran, verse moves crowds to tears, as Christina Patterson discovers.

Manchester City fans cheer on their team during Monday's big game

Christina Patterson: If only I had blind faith in our national religion

People who aren't football fans don't get to weep, or hug, in public, or have a kind of communion, with beer

On the job: the Queen yesterday in Aberfan, Wales

Christina Patterson: The Queen's lesson – it's how you behave, not how you feel, that matters

On Thursday, an 86-year-old woman met the Welsh rugby team. After that, she went to a community festival, where she saw displays by the local mountain rescue team, the Forestry Commission and Merthyr Tydfil scouts.

Christina Patterson: It's not 'social cleansing' if Newham Council can't afford to house these people any more

Is it fair some people can have as many children as they like, live wherever they like, and have their rent paid by people who can’t afford to do either?

Why can't we have more TV presenters like Mary Beard?

Christina Patterson: Lashings of sex, booze and bling – it's an everyday story of ancient Rome

He called himself "Mr Hot Sex". He lived in a ménage à trois. He lived, according to a woman with long grey hair and a very big smile, in the biggest immigrant community in the world. He lived, she said, in a city of a million people. He lived 2,000 years ago, in Rome.

Christina Patterson: The first step to mass murder is a belief in good and evil

Anders Breivik hates Muslims, multiculturalism and feminism, but really what he hates is himself

Christina Patterson: Samantha Brick - The woman whose brief fame showed us that self-confidence can be a curse

Andy Warhol would have been amused. Andy Warhol, who hardly ever smiled, at least in photos, surely would have when he heard about a woman called Samantha Brick. He might even have laughed when he heard the tale of how a woman almost no one had heard of became famous, not just for 15 minutes, but for nearly two weeks. And not for anything she'd done, or even for being beautiful, but for thinking she was beautiful when quite a lot of people thought she wasn't.

 

Day In a Page

Beards, brawn and body art

Beards, brawn and body art

Meet London’s new batch of male models
Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

British love of shows such as The Bridge, Borgen and The Killing shows no sign of fading
Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?

The Great Green Wall of Africa,

Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?
Laughter Inc: the cheering growth of the chuckle industry

Laughter Inc

The cheering growth of the chuckle industry
The bad science scandal: how fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research

The bad science scandal

How fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research
To the manor born: The female aristocrats battling to inherit the title

Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title

A passionate protest is gathering pace among the women of Britain's aristocracy, who believe that men should no longer automatically inherit the family pile and title.
Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten

In pictures: JFK's visit to Berlin in 1963

Photographer Ulrich Mack accompanied Kennedy on the entire trip. The results are an astonishing record of a watershed moment.
Eat shoots and leaves: Mark Hix gets creative with fresh peas, mangetouts and sugar snaps

Mark Hix gets creative with English peas

English peas and their offsprings, such as mangetouts and sugar snaps, are great tossed into a salad, says our chef.
Ceviche with a smile: Chef Martin Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends

Chef Martin Morales: Ceviche with a smile

Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends
Incredible edible: Guerrilla gardeners are planting veg for the masses in West Yorkshire

Incredible edible: Guerrilla gardeners

Holly Williams joins the volunteers who have turned a small town into a thriving community with a guerrilla gardening scheme that has provided a blueprint for sustainability.
Seasoned to taste: The restaurants that draw happy diners back year after year

Seasoned to taste: Food institutions

In an industry famed for short-lived success and pop-up pretenders, it takes something special to stick around.
Anatomy of a waiter: Service staff spill the secrets of their trade

Anatomy of a waiter: Staff spill their secrets

Next Sunday is the first ever National Waiters' Day. To celebrate, we share tales from the restaurant trenches by those in the front line.
Drink in the sun: The season's best wines

Drink in the sun: The season's best wines

From complex English sparkling wine to juicy Sicilian reds...
Iran election: Farewell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we’ll miss you – but not that much...

Robert Fisk

Farewell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we’ll miss you – but not that much...
India sends its final telegram -(Stop)-

After 163 years India sends its final telegram -(Stop)-

Mobile phones and the internet have superseded the once-essential service