Hit & Run
Hit & Run: Would we care if he were alive?
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. On Radio 4's Front Row, his agent explains that yes, it has taken a while to be published in the UK or the US, but it's available from a Parisian porn imprint called the Olympia Press. He explains it's a monologue by a posh, unregenerate paedophile called Humbert Humbert, and his 12-year-old "nymphet" stepdaughter, with whom he absconds across America, for extremely sexual purposes, after her mother dies.
Inside Hit & Run
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.
Hit & Run: Snotty nose, cashmere leggings
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
They look good on the uber-trendy child models in the ad campaign, and you know they'd look good on your offspring, too.
Team Obama - Too much of a good thing?
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
In case you didn't find time between your roast and the X Factor results show to read the 7,500-word dissection of the Obamas' marriage in The New York Times Magazine, one of the more revealing passages tells how the First Couple wasn't always so appealing.
Hit & Run: Find a branch near you
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
The Met Office has declared that this autumn is officially an Indian summer, predicting balmy temperatures of 21C in the South-east and Midlands tomorrow. What better way to celebrate the arrival of "summer" – and save some money during half-term – than with some leaf peeping?
Hit & Run: A paw carbon rating
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Forget scratched furniture and suspicious patches on the living room carpet – your pet suddenly has a lot to answer for: the planet's environmental future no less.
Hit & Run: A Marr, superstar?
Thursday, 22 October 2009
According to the advertisements for his latest book, The Making of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr is "Britain's favourite broadcaster". Marr may indeed be the favourite broadcaster of Britain's media and middle classes, though messrs Paxman, Dimbleby or Davies – Evan, not Alan – might have something to say about it. Surely, however, the BBC's former political editor can't lay serious claim to the title of most popular man on the box when the two big programmes he presents go out at 9am on a Sunday (The Andrew Marr Show, BBC1), when nobody but the cabinet minister being interviewed and a couple of their aides is even awake; and 9am on a Monday (Start the Week, Radio 4), when most of us are out of earshot on a tube somewhere, glazedly wondering where the weekend went.
Hit & Run: When divas join forces
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Not since Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson teamed up for "I Know Him So Well" has the diva community been so excited. The news that Beyoncé and Lady Gaga are teaming up on a secret project will no doubt have their respective fans squirming in their chairs – with anticipation, that is, not because their bodysuits are chafing. Beyoncé, credited with one of the catchiest songs and most-copied dance routines of the past year with her hit "Single Ladies", has a repertoire that extends across soul, gospel, R'n'B and disco, not to mention crunk. Gaga, meanwhile, has a great wardrobe team and a vocoder.
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