- Columnists RSS Feed

Editor-At-Large: We can help women into paid work, but where are the jobs?

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Steve Hilton, Dave Cameron's "blue sky thinker" might be parodied online and mocked for his ghastly taste in casual wear, but I'll give him credit for one thing – persuading the PM to attend a get-together last week with the heads of the Nordic Baltic countries. Yes, the countries whose television drama we've fallen in love with – intelligent, civilised fare like Borgen, Wallender, The Killing and - soon to come, The Bridge and Lilyhammer on BBC4. This group includes the brave nations (Norway and Iceland) who decided to implement a quota of 40 per cent women on the boards of their public companies. And guess what – nothing ground to a halt and economies didn't implode. There's so much to like about this group, even if you're not a fan of oily fish and snow.

Dom Joly: No one's sneering at the people of Homs now

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Two stories dominated the news agenda last week – Harry Bloody Redknapp and Homs. I loathe football at the best of times, but the story of whether Redknapp might be considered as England manager when he's finished with Tottenham Hotspur is about as interesting as one of Piers Morgan's Tweets.

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'No power on earth can crush the spirit of the Sir Cliff lookalike, Mike Read'

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Who knew Mike Read plans to revive his musical play about Oscar Wilde, which on its October 2004 outing was closed after just one night? And who can know why? Except that Read, former stalwart of Wonderful Radio 1 is nothing if not the triumph of hope over experience in human form. No power on earth can crush the spirit of the Cliff Richard lookalike. Not the bankruptcy that forced him to sell his home and record collection, not the critical reaction to his 'choc-art' renditions of LS Lowry's works, not the failure of his other musical that was themed on the life of his friend and muse Sir Cliff, not being the first voted off I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, not even another famously short-lived run as prospective Tory candidate for London mayor. Read quickly withdrew and selflessly blogged in support of Boris Johnson, whom he tutored in high politics by expressing his belief that rapists, murderers and paedophiles had no place on the streets of London and never would.

David Lister: You want to thank your mum and dad, but we want to hear a decent acceptance speech

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

There are evenings, there are long evenings, and there are the Bafta awards. Tomorrow night, the interminable ceremony will take place, with TV, if past form is anything to go by, at least sparing us some of the lesser awards and concentrating on the more glamorous ones.

Tim Walker: Know what I'd do if I won the lottery?

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Foolishly, I never play the lottery, but this week I found myself fantasy-spending an imaginary Euromillions win. I'd buy a house in a fashionable area of London, and another in a fashionable area of Brazil. I'd take a five-star holiday with a few close friends (on condition they never ask me for a loan). I'd outbid a Russian for a piece of art I don't understand. I'd book a seat on Virgin Galactic. I might order an obscure exotic pet. The one thing I absolutely wouldn't do is hold a press conference.

Chris Bryant: How sanctimonious and uptight do you have to be to object to these prayers?

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

I'm about as secular a former vicar and heterodox a Christian as you can get, but there are times when the secularists just make themselves look silly. Yesterday's crazy judgment against Bideford Council is one such instance.

Tom Sutcliffe: Take a shot at what it all means

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

"Any reaction to the material is the right reaction." As diktats go you can hardly complain that this is over-controlling. Sean Durkin said it in an interview recently about his debut film Martha Marcy May Marlene. He'd been asked about the film's ambiguities, and – entirely sensibly, in my view – had declined to take the opportunity to diminish them in any way. If you're one kind of film-goer I can see that this answer might strike you as irritating. You assume that a film means one thing, that the director knows what that is and that, even if they choose to keep such information to themselves, it is available somewhere to make final sense of everything. You might be groping in the mist but you like to feel that you might actually hit something solid if you hit the right conclusion. Durkin's might just have been a simple way of saying "Aha... I know, but I'm not going to tell you". But it seems to hint at something grander than that, which is that uncertainty is at the heart of his film. Mischievously, I did briefly wonder how he'd react if his generosity about interpretation was really tested – if some earnest loon insisted that the whole thing was in fact a coded allegory on the folly of leaving the gold standard and adopting Obamacare, for instance. But then I remembered that I was on his side anyway, in the long, drawn-out combat between the dirigistes and the open-enders. Better Durkin's emancipation of the imagination than most directors' dictatorial control of it.

John Walsh: If only the magical Angela Carter were around to record life in 2012

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Hearing A Postcard from Angela Carter read out on Radio 4 this week and finding the complete Carter oeuvre back in bookshops, it struck me how much, although she died 20 years ago, she'd have enjoyed life in 2012.

Janet Street-Porter: We're being told to holiday in Britain. This is my reply ...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:11 +0000

Dear Jeremy Hunt

You have just launched a costly campaign to persuade Britons to holiday at home this year. As Culture Secretary, your message is: "There's so much happening in Britain in 2012, why on earth would you want to go abroad?" And you want plucky Brits to flock to London and enjoy discounted hotel rooms and all the specially commissioned cultural goodies on offer. Sadly your mission will fail. Here are the reasons why everyone I know who can beg, borrow or steal the price of a plane, ferry or train ticket has already made plans to be as far away as possible from the Olympics.

Dom Joly: The secret of happy memories? Don't keep a diary

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

I am desperately trying to get fit in time for my final monster-hunting trip in Nepal. I'm off to try and find the Yeti, or the "Appalling Snowman" as my son calls him. Unfortunately, I broke four metatarsals in my left foot while on a television show in Argentina and, a year later, the foot is still giving me huge problems. This is very unfortunate as I have a six-day trek ahead of me. The word "trek' is a very passive sounding description for clambering up huge mountains at very high altitude while very cold in order to look for a hairy missing link.

David Lister: Is this a case of a great but troubled ballet star being wronged? I don't think so

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

On Thursday, it was reported that Sergei Polunin, the Royal Ballet star who dramatically quit the company a week ago, has now lost his work permit, according to a Royal Ballet spokesperson. It would take a hard-hearted person not to feel sympathy with the brilliant 22-year-old. So, call me hard-hearted, because I'm afraid I don't.

Chris Bryant: Identifying these pariahs isn't about class warfare. It's about common decency

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Politics is taking a strange, atomised, bitty trajectory at the moment. In one corner there are things that aren't quite what they seem.

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'Anna Ford and Sandi Toksvig are simply two gals wanting to learn woodwork'

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Who knew that Anna Ford and Sandi Toksvig take woodwork classes together? Who knew that woodwork, come to that, is the new knitting? But it apparently is, and in that capacity it has cemented one of the unlikelier celebrity friendships since Bette Midler palled up with 50 Cent.

Tom Sutcliffe: The luxurious nature of whimsy

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

I found myself thinking about the low status of whimsy the other day. The place was the Hayward Gallery, which is currently hosting the funniest art exhibition I've been to for some time, David Shrigley: Brain Activity. The precise time was when I found myself standing next to the artist/cartoonist/provocateur as he gave an interview to a journalist at the press view. He was describing (I think) the libretto for an opera he staged recently called Pass the Spoon, which features a manic-depressive egg and a character called Mr Granules. Those details I turned up later, but what he sketched out at the time was a work that included articulate vegetables and a surreally comical version of a television cookery show. And I was immediately reminded of the first episode of Noel Fielding's new television series Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy, which featured, among many other things, an animated chocolate finger who seemed to have the character of an aggrieved PE teacher ("You see I can be a character like Mr Clasby too. I can shine!") and an American detective called Sergeant Raymond Boombox who engages in bantering conversation with a wise-cracking knife wound on his arm. It struck me that there is something quite Fielding-esque about Shrigley's imagination or, possibly, something Shrigley-esque in Fielding's comedy. Their world is skewed in similar ways and, as it happens, they both share a similarly cack-handed drawing style.

John Walsh: Every subject is worthy of study at school – especially nailcare and horses

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The current kerfuffle about "academic" and "non-academic" school subjects – on the difference between "proper" subjects like History and Maths and "soft" or "vocational" ones that lead only to "Mickey Mouse qualifications" – seems hopelessly misguided. Whatever the value or otherwise of their appearance on school league tables, vocational subjects shouldn't be casually dismissed by traditionalists. I want to make the case that almost all subjects (with the usual proviso about incest and folk dancing) are worthy of the concentrated attention of schoolchildren.

John Walsh: The poor guy - he'll have to change his stationery

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Blimey, that was quick. Barely an hour after the announcement, Sir Fred Goodwin's Wikipedia entry was headed "Fred Goodwin". It looked so bare. Without that all-important Sir, Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh were just historical geezers not heroes. The contraction "Fred" in "Sir Fred" sounded cool; Fred Goodwin just sounds like a bloke down the bookie's.

Janet-Street-Porter: The BBC is like the Titanic – going down fast

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

When Mark Thompson steps down as director- general of the BBC after the Olympics, who should replace him and what should they earn? Will a fresh face and a more palatable salary convince politicians and viewers that the corporation is in tune with austerity Britain?

Dom Joly: I should get the award for behaving badly

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

I went to the National Television Awards last week. I don't normally go to awards ceremonies unless I'm presenting or receiving something. This rule comes after several disastrous evenings where I've got too drunk and offended too many people.

Brian Viner: It's time to play the music (not a moment too soon). The Muppets are back!

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

At the National Television Awards on Wednesday, a small green puppet in a tuxedo, standing behind a glittering podium, announced the award for Best Entertainment Presenter, lamenting in his preamble the fact that there were no amphibians on the shortlist. The over-35s in the audience at the O2 chuckled, but a good chunk of the under-35s looked puzzled. It wasn't that they weren't comfortable with a vertically challenged, bow-tied presenter shouting at them, but this wasn't Dermot O'Leary. This was Kermit the Frog, only vaguely familiar to them, and yet restored, some would say, to his rightful place at the heart of mainstream popular culture.

Chris Bryant: If you're confused about the facts and can't admit you're wrong – that's ministerialitis

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Ministerialitis is a sadly common affliction, though some – especially those with a strong sense of self-belief – are more prone to it than others.

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'Chandler Bing thought his third nipple opened a gateway to Narnia'

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Who knew that Clive Dunn, better known as Corporal Jones from Dad's Army, was born with a third nipple? Don't panic, don't panic! Far more people have them than you might think. The 'supernumerary' nipple is diagnosed in as many as one in 18 males, though for hormonal reasons (it is thought to be a sign of virility) it is far less common in females, with about one in 50 completing the hat-trick.

David Lister: How can you celebrate great literature while preventing the freedom of expression?

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The spectre of the most scandalous and depressing episode in recent literary history raised its head this week. Salman Rushdie once again had his safety and his life threatened over his book The Satanic Verses, and was unable to show his face.

Tom Sutcliffe: From prejudice to enlightenment

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

It's always nice to have a prejudice overturned, if only because it's proof that your mind is still a changeable thing. Or rather "my" mind, since that use of a second-person possessive – like the use of "one's mind" would be – is just a way of trying to insist that a personal experience is a general one. Which is pertinent, as it happens, to the prejudice overturned – a fairly engrained dislike of any narrative voice except first-person or third-person singular. This is about grammar, and how awkward it can make us feel, and the book that overturned the prejudice was Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic, an odd and entirely individual piece of writing that hovers somewhere between fictional history and a novel. A description of the experience of Japanese "picture brides", travelling to California in the first half of the 20th century to marry men they'd never met, The Buddha in the Attic is narrated in the first-person plural, so that none of the things that happen in the book are happening to an "I". Everything happens to a "we".

John Walsh: Talking posh is on the rise. I blame Downton

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Of all the bits of the human body we're keen to improve these days, the voice is surely the most surprising. An online directory of private tutors called The Tutor Pages reports an increase of 119 per cent in elocution enquiries last year. But why? I thought we stopped worrying about "correct" accents years ago, about the time restaurants stopped insisting on jackets and ties. What used to be called BBC English or RP (Received Pronunciation) has disappeared in a flood of regional voices: Naughtie and Humphrys on Radio 4, Huw Edwards on BBC1 and Mishal Husain, who does that trick with her tongue on the "P" and the "st" of "Pakistan". Neither they, nor their audience, feel pressure to speak RP, and nor should they.

Janet Street-Porter: They pile in to damn Sir Fred's gong, but what will it change?

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Politicians are jumping over each other to demand that the disgraced former RBS chief Fred "the Shred" Goodwin should be stripped of his knighthood. Why? What difference would it make? I can see that the ritual of public humiliation might turn some people on, but this futile gesture won't help the huge number of folk fruitlessly looking for work or trying to pay bills. It won't build a single affordable home, fund a crèche or keep a library open. Ed Miliband is the latest lemming to demand Fred's head on a platter, telling anyone who'll listen that Gordon Brown should "never" have handed out the accolade in the first place.

Dom Joly: How I survived my very own Conradian nightmare

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

I'm now back in the UK recovering from a quite extraordinary trip to the Republic of the Congo. My aim was to reach the little-visited Lake Tele in the remote north of the country in an attempt to find put more about the mokele-mbembe, a legendary creature that is supposed to roam the area.

Chris Bryant: Changing how capitalism works won't be popular with everyone. But it must happen

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

I spent Thursday night at the Cambridge Union, dolled up in dickie bow and tight-fitting (I blame Christmas) dinner jacket, debating whether the Tories have been unfairly demonised. The charming hereditary Tory MP Ben Gummer advanced a fascinating argument to explain why the Tories have been significantly behind the curve on social issues over the past two decades. He reckoned it was because the party was just too good at listening to the British people, who, according to him, are intrinsically suspicious of change.

Tim Walker: Better a bald head than a bad review

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

It comes as a source of some cheer to men less attractive than Jude Law – by which I mean all of us – that the actor is suffering significant hair-loss. I'd gladly exchange my full head of hair for his face, but it's good to know that nobody's perfect, not even the sometime Best Looking Actor In The World™.

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'JD Salinger’s fondness for Tim Henman was hardly his only eccentricity'

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Who knew that JD Salinger, who died two years ago this week, was a big fan of Tim Henman and his parents? And who, quite frankly wanted to know? Re-reading The Catcher in the Rye becomes difficult, if not impossible once you do know it. Did the creator of Holden Caulfield – literature's most celebrated icon of teenage angst and, in Henman tennis context, the American novel's answer to the young John McEnroe – admire that archetype of overgrown Boy Scout goody-goodiness who once told an interviewer that his big ambition in life was to start his own wine cellar... and did he also admire his parental archetypes of rigid home counties, middle-class reserve?

David Lister: Jay-Z might be rethinking his degrading lyrics, but why do women in hip-hop stay silent?

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The hip-hop star Jay-Z has apparently vowed to stop using the word "bitch" in his lyrics now that his wife and fellow superstar Beyoncé has given birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy. He was reported to have made his pledge this week in a poem, one verse of which reads: "Before I got in the game, made a change and got rich / I didn't think about using the word bitch / I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it / Now with my daughter in this world I curse those that give it / No man will degrade her and call her names."

Tom Sutcliffe: Happiness hides the bigger picture

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

When I was at university, a friend once said to me, apropos of something I can't remember: "It's all right for you. You're always happy." I was, quite naturally, deeply offended. Not only was this not true (I'm sure I was, at the very least, averagely unhappy for a 20-year-old). But I understood that such a charge carried an unstated implication. I might not be up to being unhappy. I couldn't hack angst and had settled for cheerfulness instead. And the really grave thing was that I wasn't being accused of dishonesty, of hiding unhappiness in a rather unsporting way. It was a suggestion that I didn't have depths in which to hide anything. Perhaps I was projecting a little at the time. Perhaps my reflex of indignation had something to do with the fact that I was studying English at the time... and thus not attuned to think of happiness as a particularly desirable quality. It was, after all, a negligible feature in the canonical works I was being invited to explore, which addressed themselves far more often to the many nuances of human discontent. In literary terms, there were a hundred words for misery, but just a handful for happiness; a gallery-full of portraits of human despondency but just a smiley-face lapel badge when it came to good cheer.

John Walsh: Self-improvement is on the rise. At last, a true return to Victorian values

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

I've been pondering the legacy of Samuel Smiles, the Victorian social reformer born 200 years ago in 1812. He was an interesting cove – a former surgeon who became editor of a newspaper – and he published one of the most influential books of the age: Self-Help. It preached rugged individualism and encouraged people to find their own way in the world, rather than accept their lot. Get off your lazy butts, it told the delighted Victorians, and develop yourselves.

Chris Bryant: The Church of England needs to forget its silliness about homosexuality

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Anyone who has ever heard Jeffrey John preach, read his poetry or met him knows that he is a man of immense spirituality who should have been made a bishop years ago.

Editor-At-Large: Looks do count, Ed, but it's conviction that voters like most

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

As Ed Miliband made yet another "relaunch" speech last week, I looked across the room where I was lunching and spotted a geeky-looking bloke with bog-brush hair, wearing a pristine white shirt and a red tie – his brother David, impossible to ignore. He looked too scrubbed up, a bit otherworldly. Gary Lineker was nearby, but he blended into the hustle and bustle, a regular-looking chap with a bit of a tan. What is it about the Milibandroids that sets them apart from us, no matter how often they say they understand our aspirations and our concerns?

Dom Joly: If I do find a monster, no one will believe me

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Brazzaville is quite an extraordinary place. It sits on the mighty river Congo, a vast expanse of muddy water dotted with dug-out canoes carrying sure-footed fishermen.

Chris Bryant: My laser eye surgery helped me see things more clearly. This was one of them...

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Peggy Ashcroft had a lump on her face.

Tim Walker: A suitable case for treatment?

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Secreted in Monday's contrite statement of apology from Antony Worrall Thompson, for the repeated theft of cheap plonk and cheese from his local supermarket, was a mistakes-were-made disclaimer: the TV chef said he would "seek the treatment that is clearly needed".

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'Meryl Sheep received rave reviews for her role in ‘The Taming of the Ewe’

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Who knew that there is a character in Sesame Street by the name of Meryl Sheep? This ovine has appeared sporadically as the US children's show resident acting coach since 1987, once memorably teaching the Meryl Sheep Method to an eager Susan Sarandon.

David Lister: When will David Cameron make a song and dance about song and dance?

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Whether or not you agree with what David Cameron said about the film industry this week, whether or not you think it insufficiently mainstream (as he does) or too mainstream, at least the Prime Minister was engaging with the arts.

Tom Sutcliffe: Your action scene will leave shortly

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

There's a hypothesis that I think can't be true. It's that directors of an older generation, those who learned their trade long before YouTube and CGI and the internet, find it harder to match their rhythm to that of younger viewers. As I say, I don't think it really makes sense, but I've nevertheless found myself thinking something like it recently. Twice, in fact, and both times with very distinguished directors (directors moreover whose ability in the cutting room is a core part of their reputation).

John Walsh: A hatchet job is not the real thing unless it's done with wit and learning

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Sing a song of critics/ pockets full of lye/ four and twenty critics/ hope that you will die,/ hope that you will peter out, / hope that you will fail..." wrote a fuming Ernest Hemingway to a Mr Lee Wilson Dodd who'd given his story collection Men Without Women a bad review.

Editor-At-Large: Bin those useless self-help books and tuck in to a pie

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

January is traditionally the month of deep self-loathing. Big bills and big bellies inevitably lead to thoughts of new beginnings, a chance to mend our ways, and start afresh. Turn on the television, open any newspaper or magazine and you can't ignore exercise DVDs and diet books. Davina McCall (slender mother of three) reigns supreme at the top of the bestsellers (again), and even the comical Towie mob is flogging a keep-fit routine, complete with extras such as "what to wear to work out in Essex". Ignore them. Here's how to deal with windy and grim January: eat the same food as in December. I've enjoyed macaroni cheese, fish and chips and fruit cake, done the same amount of walking, played the same amount of tennis. When appearing in public, I wear a pair of buttock-clenching pants.

Dom Joly: If I'm munched by a mokele mbembe, farewell, dear readers

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

I'm off to the Congo for two weeks. I'm still travelling the world looking for reputed monsters to put in my new book, Scary Monsters and Super Creeps. This time I'm going after the mokele mbembe, a dinosaur-type creature that is supposed to inhabit Lake Tele in the far north of "good" Congo.

Tim Walker: Why must Ed make a Tweet of himself?

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Thanks to changes in the parliamentary rules, tech-forward MPs are now permitted to tweet from within the Commons. Many have been spotted doing so while their colleagues address the house. I do wish they'd stop. Not because they're disrupting the democratic process, but because MPs are the most insipid social networkers in the galaxy. Honourable mention must go to the likes of Louise Mensch and Tom Watson, who know how to be interesting in 140 characters. But most MPs' attempts to engage with voters via Twitter are crushingly dull. A browse through some backbenchers' accounts yields such underwhelming information as the sandwich they're eating on the Leeds to Liverpool train, the "great" meeting they just had with the local chamber of commerce, and links to their latest on-message blog post. Sometimes, to demonstrate a hint of humanity, they might inform their followers which dad-rock LP they're listening to in the car.

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'It is easy to picture Nick Clegg sobbing at his desk, listening to a requiem'

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Who knew that no gift Nick Clegg could receive today for his 44th birthday could delight him as much as the one Charles Kennedy gave him five years ago? On Clegg's 39th birthday, Kennedy quit as Liberal Democrat leader after receiving a letter demanding his resignation signed by 25 of his colleagues, a certain future Deputy Prime Minister among them. Then, Sir Menzies Campbell having been quickly tidied away a year and bit later, Clegg took over himself.

David Lister: Ageing British rock bands never die. They just end up performing in the Kremlin

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

It was New Year at the Kremlin.

Brian Viner's Christmas Quiz Answers

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

The winner of Brian Viner's Christmas Quiz is Andy Parlett of Cheam in Surrey, who will be receiving a year's supply of Spitfire Ale from master brewers Shepherd Neame.

John Walsh: Like the music they played, life after radio for the ex-DJs is a tale of hits and misses...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

It's no joke being a Radio 1 DJ. After storming the airwaves in your 20s as a silver-tongued cavalier, astounding the kids with your edgy repartee, thrilling the laydeez with your saucy banter, making a fortune talking motor-mouth piffle for three hours a day and hosting "roadshows" for listless radio fans in muddy Berkshire fields on Saturday afternoons, the only way is down.

Tom Sutcliffe: When collector's items turn to clutter

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

I cleared out my library over Christmas – or rather trimmed and tidied it, nervous that the increasing stacks of books on the floor were hazardously close to tipping its condition from "studiously cluttered" to "Channel 4 hoarder-documentary". A year of unrestrained growth and ill-disciplined browsing had steadily diminished its utility and pleasure. Quite often, I'd know that somewhere in the chaos there was a specific title that would be of use to me, but I wouldn't have the time to hunt it down. And the sense of being surrounded by books was coming to be tinged by a certain paranoia. They didn't neatly furnish the room anymore, a wallpaper of proxy erudition: they were beginning to mass, like the birds behind Tippi Hedren in that famous scene in the Hitchcock movie. It was clear that a cull was overdue.

John Walsh: The 24 OMs who show that even in Britain there's a place for meritocracy

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

There's something about the word "honour" that provokes dishonourably furious responses. In France, they're currently enragé because the Legion d'Honneur has been given to Selma Hayek. The Mexican-born actress is best known for her not-unerotic snake dance in the film From Dusk Till Dawn, during which she pours tequila down her leg and into the mouth of Quentin Tarantino, but the French government claim to have given the award for her work as "director, producer and active member of charitable foundations for 23 years".

Dom Joly: My Tokyo shopping trip ends in beers

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Tokyo is so big, so dense, so sprawling that it is more like an infinite number of villages that have been joined together by some crazed town planner. I had one day in the Japanese capital at the end of my monster-hunting trip in Hiroshima Prefecture. My plan was to take in the main sights of Tokyo, as well as getting all my Christmas shopping done in the best shopping city in the world, according to my Virgin in-flight magazine. I gathered together all the information available to me and decided I needed to visit Harajuku (to see weird manga kids), The Imperial Palace, Akihabara (electronics) and then Ginza, for some serious lady shopping. I hopped into a cab and headed for Harajuku. This was a big mistake as Tokyo cabs are eye-wateringly expensive.

Chris Bryant: Labour has a tough year ahead if it wants to win back disaffected voters

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:00:01 +0000

Out of the mouths of babes. I was chatting to one of my nieces on Christmas Eve and asked her how old she was. "Three and a half," she confidently replied. "And when will you be four?" my other half asked. "On my birthday," she shot back, looking at him as if he were simple.

Tim Walker: Here it is, a list you really want to read

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:00:01 +0000

It is difficult to believe any genuine outrage was provoked by the BBC's decision to name Tian Tian, a panda from Edinburgh (via China), in its list of female "Faces of the Year". Yet the alleged controversy touches on two particularly sensitive subject areas: the BBC, and meaningless end-of-year lists, both of which inspire irrational anger in certain sorts of people.

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'Jules Holland has morphed into an emblem of respectability'

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:00:01 +0000

Who knew that the first thing Jools Holland, who will present his 19th New Year's Eve Hootenanny on BBC2 tonight, does when he wakes up each morning is play the piano? Even before he has a tinkle he is tinkling the ivories – a revelation that so horrified Elton John that his reflex response on hearing it from Chris Evans on live radio was to speak for the nation by spluttering "Oh, fucking hell".

David Lister: There should be room in the arts world for people of all political persuasions

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:00:01 +0000

I don't really want to end the year by blowing Tracey Emin's trumpet, as she's no slouch when it comes to doing that for herself.

Chris Bryant: Delve into the Gospels and see how they contradict Christmas traditions