Hit & Run

Jude Law may not have shone in his leading roles but has received praise in supporting roles

Hit & Run: Second fiddle is best

When hosting the 2005 Oscars, Chris Rock asked a pertinent question. "Who is Jude Law? Why is he in every movie I have seen in the last four years?

Inside Hit & Run

Hit & Run: The brazen invasion

Wednesday, 25 November 2009

The British are coming, and they're smug, swaggering, middle-aged authority figures. How is it that the faces our nation presents to the world have come to be those of Simon Cowell, Jeremy Clarkson, Gordon Ramsay and Piers Morgan? And why is the world – or America, at the very least – so keen on them?

Hit & Run: Pleased to meet flu

Tuesday, 24 November 2009

That greatest of Christmas traditions – kissing – is under threat as Britain's leading authority on etiquette fears sloppy smackers under the mistletoe could lead to a festive outbreak of swine flu. Far better to clash cheeks than lips, says Debrett's, but even a chaste handshake is risky. So as the party season approaches, how is an amorous uncle or Kenneth from accounts supposed to navigate this greetings minefield without being blown into a snotty swine flu lockdown?

Hit & Run: So long to loft living

Thursday, 19 November 2009

It's official. It's no longer fashionable to live in a loft. The monument to 1990s city living – all open plan with no bourgeois walls or middle class privacy – as popularised by Friends and Jamie Oliver – is dead.

Hit & Run: A club that's members only

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Sarah Palin's promise to lay bare the backstage details of her vice-presidential bid appears to have been an empty one; sections of her forthcoming memoir Going Rogue have been disputed by McCain campaign staffers before it even hits the shelves.

Hit & Run: Would we care if he were alive?

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

Imagine that this year's breakout novelist is a 56-year-old Russian-American called Vladimir Nabokov, whose 12th work of fiction, Lolita, is making waves.

Hit & Run: SimplicITy computer delivers over-50s to the digital age

Thursday, 12 November 2009

If social networking is something you do at the bingo hall, windows require (net) curtains, and a Mac is to be worn in the rain, chances are you're old. Because, apparently, old people don't do computers.

Hit & Run: Red carpets and mint cake

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

If there were a device that could measure toughness – an adrenalin radar scanning the planet for nutters in harnesses – hardcore hotspots would probably include the Himalayas and Alps.

Hit & Run: Holding out for a hamster

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

I'm in the toy department of Boots on High Street Kensington and I'm holding a picture of a robotic hamster. "Do you have this?" I shout at a sales assistant. "I must have this. There are only 46 days left until Christmas," I explain desperately.

Hit & Run: Best job in the world?

Thursday, 5 November 2009

In the "My Oxford" column of the new Oxford Today magazine, Ian Hislop is asked if he'd like to be a student again. "Oh yes," he replies, "and I've a major fantasy that, somewhere, there [is] a college so desperate that they will ask me to be Master." As job applications go, this has a touchingly scattergun quality: any college will do, as long as I get to be Master. It's a fantasy shared by many: a job combining the roles of academic, diplomat, upholder of tradition, guardian of protocol, sports cheerleader, party-giver, gourmand, gossip, wine-tippler and amateur fundraiser.