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Editor-At-Large: A woman's right to choose HRT

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

A public apology for a past mistake has become highly fashionable – modern touchy-feely politicians have been quick to see the advantages of a well-timed dollop of humility, saying sorry for slavery, Bloody Sunday, the Irish Famine and "regrets" (apology-lite) for the loss of life in Iraq. The list is endless. But I can't recall any health ministers, let alone prime ministers, apologising to millions of British women who've had their lives blighted for the past decade because of incompetent interpretation of clinical data. If men had periods, then the controversy over HRT would have been nailed down years ago. Instead, based on a misleading international study that was halted in 2002, three years early, when the risk of developing breast cancer and heart problems as a result of taking HRT was vastly overstated.

Dom Joly: Eurovision's host likes things puny or phoney. Perfect

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

I didn't watch The Eurovision Song Contest. Actually, I'm not sure I've ever seen it, but I'm certain that it's not for me. For once, I agree with the government of Iran when it berated its little neighbour, Azerbaijan, for hosting this most peculiar of musical institutions. I did catch an airing of the Engelbert Humperdinck video, and that was enough to put me right off my breakfast. If the Iranians hear it, then I'm pretty sure they will invade immediately. In the subsequent interview, The Hump was being harassed by the loathsome Jedward, but he put up with them in a remarkably patient manner. As if the lobotomy twins weren't enough, The Hump was then asked to comment on the human rights situation in Azerbaijan. He played the "I'm only a lowly singer" card: he had been asked to come and sing a song and that's what he was going to do. The interviewer didn't even bother to question Jedward on their political views. As terrible as the regime's behaviour might be, I for one would turn a blind eye if Jedward were to be detained without trial for a prolonged period of time after their performance was over.

Tim Walker: Blame the music, not Graham Norton

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

A couple of years ago, against my better judgement, I agreed to attend my first "Eurovision party". It was to be my last. Some people dress up in silly outfits every year to watch this transcontinental turd-polishing show; we just had a few funny-coloured drinks and a buffet dinner. That was bad enough. If you're a Eurovision virgin considering a deflowerment, let me dissuade you. Eurovision, like so much of 21st century pop culture, is supposed to be consumed ironically. An episode of TOWIE requires just 30 minutes of ironi-watching. Eurovision takes more than three hours. That's twice as long as a football match.

David Lister: The little niggles keeping the arts from entering an Elizabethan golden age

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

On Wednesday night I joined the great, the good and the odd crafty ligger at the Royal Academy, where the Queen hosted a celebration for the arts. I'm with Her Majesty on this one. There's quite a lot to celebrate. As a look at the cultural fare in the London 2012 festival, detailed in this issue, shows, you can't move for arts this summer. Sport, slightly bizarrely in Olympics year, has become a brief interlude in the weeks and weeks and weeks of Cultural Olympiad shows, exhibitions and mini-festivals that owe their existence to the Olympics. They grew out of the Games, and are almost devouring them.

Chris Bryant: Why do civil servants still get honours when so many exceptional people don't?

Fri, 25 May 2012 20:00:01 +0100

On Wednesday evening, there was a little gathering of family and friends of all political parties on the (sweltering) Terrace at the Commons. Karen Pollock had been to the Palace to receive her MBE from the Princess Royal for her work as chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust. It's a great organisation, notwithstanding David Cameron having once referred to the Labour government's funding of it as "a gimmick".

John Walsh: Who wants a genius as their mentor? Not me

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

When Naomi Alderman was rung up last autumn and asked if she'd be interested in "some kind of literary mentor scheme", it must have surprised her that she was being offered the protégée role. Alderman was, after all, a published writer. She'd won the Orange Award for new writers, and been named Young Writer of the Year by a Sunday newspaper.

Editor-At-Large: A wedding day should be a gay day

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Marriage is pretty unattractive to many straight people. We don't get tax breaks, and our political leaders (apart from David Cameron) are too wet to stick up for it.

Dom Joly: It's not me they hate. It's the clothes (I hope)

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

One of the interesting aspects of filming a hidden-camera show is the opportunity it gives you to become someone else. Every morning I get up and spend three hours in make-up, donning wigs, fake noses, different-coloured eyes, and then get into costume. It gives me a unique insight into how difficult life must be for some people.

Tom Sutcliffe: Space, the final frontier for what to say about art when we are lost for words

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:27 +0100

"I'd suggest you walk around and explore the space," said the usher at the door to dreamthinkspeak's excellent remix of Hamlet at the Brighton Festival.

David Lister: Screening live performances is of value but it's no substitute for the real thing

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:04 +0100

It doesn't happen often, but how I love it when it does. Occasionally, just occasionally, a leading mover and shaker in the arts utters a heresy.

Tim Walker: Gary and Harry and a tambourine

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

XFactor judge Gary Barlow's commemorative Diamond Jubilee song was broadcast for the first time yesterday on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show. The song, "Sing", features indigenous Australian guitarist Gurrumul, drums by the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force Band, vocals from Gareth Malone's Military Wives – and Prince Harry on tambourine. The songwriter was asked whether Harry (who also appears in the video, dancing) demonstrated any innate musical talent. "No," he replied.

Rebecca Tyrrel: Dan Aykroyd believes that aliens visit us because 'they don't dance like Mick Jagger'

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Who knew that Dan Aykroyd, writer and star of Ghostbusters, has webbed toes? Who ya gonna call if you're born with two toes fused together by shared tissue? No one, that's who.

Chris Bryant: We're being saddled with a daft American-style policing idea nobody wants

Fri, 18 May 2012 20:00:01 +0100

This week, the Government published the rules that will apply to the elections in November of Police and Crime Commissioners for England and Wales. Among other obscure things (who the returning officer is, how the ballot is conducted and so on) they lay out exactly how much someone can spend on their election campaign. The figures are quite amazing. The candidates for West Midlands can spend a whopping £357,435, Greater Manchester £356,204, Sussex £219,983 and Thames Valley £303,303. Even candidates for Dyfed Powys can look to spend up to £72,622. These are phenomenal sums for an individual or party to have to find, on top of other election campaigns. But what is disturbing is that the Government has decided in its infinite wisdom that, unlike other elections, candidates will not even be entitled to a free delivery of a leaflet. Now money is scarce and the public purse has more than enough demands on it, but the real problem is that yet again we may see elections where the wealthy can dip into their own pockets and vastly outspend an ordinary member of the public. Democracy for sale is bad enough, but policing for sale gives me the collywobbles.

John Walsh: The black-tie dinner at an Oxford college that told me dress codes do matter

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

It's a storm in an egg cup. At Oxford University, students at Brasenose College have been rebuked for inappropriate dress and for "a failure to distinguish between public and private spaces". In other words, they've been told off for coming to breakfast in jim-jams and dressing-gowns.

Editor-At-Large: No lipstick? Glasses? It's just politics

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

When Hillary Clinton says she's no longer bothered about the way she looks, I don't believe her. She's spent most of her professional life in the public eye, as the working wife of a president, and now as the US Secretary of State. Hillary has been mocked over the years for her frumpy clothes and unflattering hairstyles. Now, she's told an interviewer that, at 64, she no longer bothers with make-up, fancy hairstyles or contact lenses instead of glasses, implying it's a relief to leave such trivialities behind. Really?

Dom Joly: Tweets to followers ratio too high? You may be a loony

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

My second week of hidden camera filming around the UK is over and it has taught me a lot about three of our most visited tourist towns.

Tom Sutcliffe: Perhaps the dreaded interval is good for more than just selling ice cream

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:57 +0100

I'm not easily alarmed at the door of a theatre, even in these days of litigation-wary admonition. A threat of strobe-lighting, or fog-effects or gunshots won't even make me break step.

David Lister: Artists must take a stand against ticket booking fees that add insult to injury

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:35 +0100

In my long campaign against booking fees in the arts, I have heard quite a number of horror stories from readers. But an email from Susan James this week probably takes the biscuit.

Tim Walker: A different kind of Hendrix experience

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

News that a Jimi Hendrix biopic is in pre-production was greeted, naturally, with some ear-melting feedback. The film, All By My Side, starring Outkast's Andre 3000 as the guitar hero, will reportedly portray the period during which Hendrix's 1967 debut, Are You Experienced?, was recorded.

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'Gina Ford hasn't so much as a parking ticket to her name'

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Who knew that Benjamin Spock, the first and perhaps greatest of the child-rearing gurus, won a gold medal for rowing at the Paris Olympics of 1924?

Chris Bryant: The Queen's Speech: an ossified ceremony that is nothing more than a big lie

Fri, 11 May 2012 20:00:01 +0100

I hate the Queen's Speech. I don't specifically mean this week's one, although it was a pretty flimsy, cowardly, empty calling card of a thing.

Dom Joly: Operation Bacon nearly blew my cover at the bank

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

My first week of "secret" filming is over and I'm knackered. I'd forgotten just what an adrenalin rollercoaster the world of the hidden camera could be. A crew of around 20 and I descended upon the "Venice of the Cotswolds" (Bourton-on-the-Water) for three days. The inhabitants of the town were very patient with us, considering that we caused non-stop minor mayhem around them.

David Lister: All this culture was going on anyway. So why make an Olympiad out of it?

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:05 +0100

The Cultural Olympiad fascinates me. There it is in all its multi-million-pound glory, its London 2012 festival officially launched to tremendous fanfare a matter of days ago. Events announced included Jeremy Deller's "Stonehenge as a bouncy castle" and Martin Creed's Work No 1197 (this entails all the bells in the country being rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes).

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'If James Murdoch asked the Pope to pray for his career, it appears not to have worked'

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Who knew that, during the Holy Father's 2010 visit to Britain, James Murdoch made a £100,000 donation towards funding the trip, and wasgranted a private audience with the Pope. See this as either a weirdcoincidence or even a Papal miracle, but please do not regard it as anything so vulgar as buying access. That is not, has never been, and never will be the Murdoch family's way.

Tim Walker: Give me dinner, not Dinner, any day

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

I have eaten at the world's ninth best restaurant. According to Restaurant magazine's list of the 50 best, Dinner serves the greatest dinner in the UK, edging into the international top 10. I don't often frequent the fine dining sphere, but so much hype surrounded Heston Blumenthal's venture when it opened last year, that I felt obliged to book a spot on the three-month waiting list.

Chris Bryant: The naked and the dead – just a couple of the things you meet while canvassing

Fri, 04 May 2012 20:00:01 +0100

Canvassing is one of the strangest things in the world. We knock on strangers' doors, or ring them on the phone and ask them whether and how they vote. We note it down, put it into the computer and on polling day we go round and remind our "promises" to vote.

John Walsh: Thank you, John Peel. I'm no longer ashamed

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

I saw with mixed feelings that John Peel's record collection is up for inspection by his adoring fans. The great DJ, whose Radio 1 show brought the most unearthly sounds to our ears, left a massive trove: 26,000 albums, 40,000 singles and tons of CDs, stashed in every room of his house except the kitchen and bedroom, the albums scrupulously filed in a cabinet.

John Walsh: How Danish squid with green strawberries won first place once again

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

What are the qualities that, for the third year running, have put a former salted-herring warehouse on the Copenhagen waterfront at the top of the world's best restaurants?

Editor-At-Large: Job sharing divides work more fairly

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Wouldn't Britain run a lot more smoothly if every citizen was handed a lethal pill at 75? Compulsory death – there's a lot to be said for it. We old people cost a fortune in drugs and assistance, and clog up the job market by refusing to retire, denying middle management a step up the ladder. Many of us live in houses with quite a few spare rooms. Can bankrupt Britain afford us?

Dom Joly: Dressing like Churchill closes doors in Marrakech

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

In Marrakesh for a couple of days' rest and relaxation I have been catching up on my reading. As well as Tom Watson's Dial M For Murdoch and Martha Gellhorn's Travels with Myself and Another, I am ashamed to say that I succumbed to reading Tom Bower's book about the surprisingly vacuous life of Simon Cowell, Sweet Revenge. One of the stories was about Cowell's being refused entry to a hotel in Antigua because he was wearing a T-shirt. This refusal led him, in a slightly confused fashion, to a meeting with Michael Winner who introduced him to the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados, a place I have never visited and never want to.

David Lister: Why it's time for venues to put great British acting names back in the spotlight

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:00:33 +0100

A new theatre is to be built in the West End of London, the first for many years. We know from its owners where it will be – right above Tottenham Court Road Tube station. We know roughly how big it will be – quite compact. We know what sort of shows it will put on – straight plays, not musicals. The only thing we don't know is its name

Rebecca Tyrrel: Mel Gibson's defenders recollect his rare gift for simulating fart noises'

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Who knew that Mel Gibson has a horseshoe kidney? This congenital disorder affects about 1 in 400 people whose two kidneys are melded together into one giant organ. The extent to which this may explain why Gibson is such a gigantic organ himself is not clear. While side effects can include kidney stones, infections and tumours, there is no evidence that it heightens the risk of misogyny, homophobia, racism or anti-Semitism. Gibson is the only known super-kidney celeb on the planet, and it would be irresponsible to draw conclusions from a study group of one.

Chris Bryant: Tory backbenchers vouch loyalty to Hunt but there's an earthquake rumbling

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:00:01 +0100

The mushroom cloud that is Rupert Murdoch is still hanging eerily over Westminster. The bit I don't understand is why on earth Jeremy Hunt was ever asked to adjudicate on the BSkyB bid.

Will Self: London thinks only of itself. The rest of the country is just there to be bled dry

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:00:01 +0100

In conversation with John Gray a couple of months ago, the subject of Britain's future came up, and the philosopher opined that: "London will become a sort of Singapore, I think, a wealthy island of urbanity surrounded by impoverished satrapies." I found myself without any hesitation acceding to this dystopian vision, and with every successive week the Coalition's policies – acting as a turbocharger on the impact of international capital flows – only seem to be bringing this intensely divisive state of affairs closer.

John Walsh: I never used to worry that mobiles could damage your health. I worry now

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

I have ghastly suspicions that my teenage daughter may take up smoking. Both her siblings puff away like Stephenson's Rocket, so do the coolest boys in her class. Soon I'll start finding Rizla papers used as bookmarks in her A-level copy of Frankenstein.

Dom Joly: On with my dodgy anorak and I'm ready to rumble

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The first day of filming looms and I am getting ready to rumble. One of the main secrets of hidden camera is to be, well, hidden. I don't mean snuck behind a bush waiting for people. I mean wearing the right costume so that you can just blend into the background. Disguises can often be too comedy and easily spotted. As an example, I have to wear pyjamas and slippers in one scene. The natural instinct is to go all Wallace & Gromit with Victorian-style pyjamas and check slippers. I opted for plain black slippers and blue pyjamas.

Editor-At-Large: Kids... sit up, scrub up and buckle down

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

There's an easy way to tell when a government is deep in the brown stuff: every day it makes self-important statements designed to divert attention from a catastrophic loss of direction.

David Lister: Well done the Proms for showing you don't have to genuflect to the Olympics

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

This was the big week. The countdown to the event of the summer, with every newspaper along with TV and radio doing some version of the story. Yes, the Proms is just around the corner. But somehow the Proms neglected to present itself quite like that, and it was left to that other summer jamboree to garner the majority of the column inches. There is, though, something that links the Olympics and the Proms. At last an arts event has launched with the confidence and enthusiasm to show that the timidity and defeatism elsewhere in the arts is absurd.

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'The patriotic Olympic nappy has the Union Jack emblazoned upon its rear

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Who knew that Paula Radcliffe had it in her to brazen out her new role as Olympic frontwoman for Pampers nappies while ignoring the obvious irony? Somehow she has done just that. Radcliffe has posed for photo-shoots and made promotional films with her infant son modelling the GB Design Active Fit nappy, without a single raised eyebrow or knowing smirk about her own legendary lavatory stop.

Tim Walker: Rating those we meet online isn't creepy. We all do it

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The web tends to entrap men who write unedifying things about women. Remember the fellow from Fulham who emailed a friend, advising him to "have a go" with his "hot" housemate, then inadvertently copied her into the conversation? That went viral and now so has an ungentlemanly spreadsheet made by a young New Yorker, to help him keep track of the girls he'd met via Match.com. The document contained David Merkur's comments on each of his dates and notes on the progress of each prospective relationship. When one expressed an interest in seeing it, he foolishly sent her a copy, which she forwarded to her friends.

Chris Bryant: The Tories' clustershambles is all very entertaining, but Cameron needs to get a grip

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Political misfortunes rarely come in isolation. If anything, they prefer to breed. That's certainly how it feels watching the Coalition Government fall so spectacularly into its slough of despond. It's not even as if anybody else tripped them up. Every element of the present malaise has been a home-grown Jack and Jill-style tumble. The NHS Bill, the petrol panic, the botched Budget, Theresa's May Day (in April). These were all unforced errors.

Tom Sutcliffe: Nixon's crisis makes good drama

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

I don't know exactly how you'd establish a league table for this kind of thing, but I've occasionally wondered whether any American president could beat Richard Nixon when it comes to cultural magnetism. What I mean is some measure of the frequency with which real political figures appear in fiction and film – a way of reflecting the mark they left on our collective imaginations. And you'll have two obvious rivals right away, I imagine, in this field at least: Lincoln and Kennedy.

John Walsh: Want to know the truth about the British? Let Alfred Hitchcock be your guide

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Hitchcock and the Olympics! What could be a more perfect fit? Though it's hard to make an immediate visual correlation between the portly film director and the world of athletic endeavour, Hitchcock's considerable shadow will loom over the Olympics as part of the cultural hors d'oeuvre. Digital versions of his early silent films, with new orchestral scores, will be premiered as the grand finale of the Cultural Olympiad in the run-up to the Games.

Editor-At-Large: Jesus didn't say you get a generous tax break thrown in

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Every day, I'm asked to support a charitable cause – to do a funny drawing, send a signed book, go on a group walk, donate a pair of specs or a frock. Sadly, it rarely involves just sticking my hand in my pocket, handing over cash or writing a cheque. It's as if charities think they need to sugar the pill of donation by coating it with a "fun" activity – so donors get something in return for their generosity: an object bought at auction, the completion of a physical feat, like today's marathon. Once people ran long distances, walked across countries and climbed high mountains for the pure challenge and the sense of accomplishment; now, 99 per cent of the time, these activities have to be carried out for a good cause.

Dom Joly: What has four legs and the IQ of a guppy? My dog

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

What do you do when you realise that your dog is a moron? Don't get me wrong, I love both my dogs, it's just that Oscar, the younger of the two, is monumentally stupid.

David Lister: One language, two cultures – but not everything needs to be translated for America

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:00:36 +0100

There was something about the previews on Broadway this week of the West End hit One Man, Two Guvnors which fascinated me far more than whether James Corden would win over New York audiences. He did, of course, and deserved to with a comic tour de force.

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'Julie Christie has made an art form of turning down films such as The Godfather'

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Who knew that Julie Christie, who hard as it is to believe turns 71 today, was considered for the part of the first Bond girl 50 years ago, but was cast aside for being too flat-chested? Ursula Andress got the part instead and looked marvellous with that weirdly sexy knife slipped into the belt of that white bikini and... well, it is clearly time to make a bad joke about Christie, never before or since, having her knockers. And would we all have been debating, 50 years on whether she and Sean Connery did or didn't do it on the beach, much as we still discuss in polite circles exactly what went on with Donald Sutherland that night in Venice during the filming of the legendary sex scene in Look Back in Anger?

Tim Walker: How can Instagram have 'integrity'?

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Lots of people were shocked when Facebook spent a whole billion dollars to acquire Instagram, the little photography app that could – despite it never having made a dime in its short life. Social networks don't produce anything tangible, so they tend to be valued according to guestimates of their future usefulness to advertisers.

Tom Sutcliffe: When the object is to collect objects

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

I found myself wondering about sets appeal the other day, walking round the Serpentine's new exhibition of the work of Hans-Peter Feldmann. What I mean by that is the seductive lure of collections – a human instinct which runs the full gamut from psychological obsession to high-minded reflection. Feldmann, an artist who is very big in Europe but not quite as well-known here, loves collections and has even made a living out of them, trading in collectibles and antique toys. He once issued a magazine for thimble collectors (he was trading in thimbles at the time) – a tiny-format publication that is itself, no doubt, now the subject of some collector's completist fever.

John Walsh: It's the season of lone idiots. Just try stopping them

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

On Saturday, a friend came into the house from playing tennis in the garden and said "How's the Boat Race?" "You'll never believe this," I said, "but it's been stopped by a protester." "Bloody hell," said my friend, "did he streak?"

Dom Joly: On with the motley – it's time to fool Britannia

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

I'm just getting ready to start annoying the people of Britain with my new TV show, Fool Britannia. We start filming in a couple of weeks, so preparation is well under way. Things have changed since I last dipped my toe into the world of hidden camera. We used to just wander into work in the morning, have a "bit of a think" and then decide what we were going to film. Maybe I would spot a milkman and mutter, "Oh, we haven't done anything with a milkman character." So we'd then drive up to a costume house, such as Angels, and root around for a milkman costume. Once we'd got this it would be nearly time for lunch – so we'd find somewhere for a nice, two-hour Continental-style break. And, hopefully, over the meal we would have come up with an idea for what to do with the milkman.

Tim Walker: Why Mad Men fans are not daft

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Everyone says James Murdoch stepped down as BSkyB chairman because of phone-hacking. But his resignation also came suspiciously close on the heels of the Mad Men series premiere on Sky Atlantic. When the first episode of Mad Men's fourth series was broadcast on BBC4 in 2010, it was watched by an average audience of 355,000, rising to 1.5m with the BBC2 repeat. The recent double-bill debut of series five – its first since being poached by Sky – got just 72,000. When the next episode aired on Tuesday, viewer figures fell to 47,000.

David Lister: I've had enough of the critics who insist on telling the world what is and isn't art

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

What is it about art? Not art generally, as in culture, but art in particular, the visual arts. What is it about the visual arts that make people feel entitled to decree on behalf of the rest of the population what can and cannot be art?

Rebecca Tyrrel: Neo-Luddite Elton admitted that he didn’t know the web address of his own charity

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Who knew that Elton John is a staunch enemy of modern technology? This news first emerged on The Larry King Show a few years back, when the Queen Mother of rock sheepishly admitted that he had no idea of the website address of his own charity, and only last year he revealed: "I don't have a phone, I don't have a computer, I don't have an iPad and I don't have an iPod".

Tom Sutcliffe: Death of a Duchess is truly dreadful

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Sometimes you catch sight of your culture from an odd angle and wonder what it might look like to an alien. And another world isn't necessary here, incidentally; another time will do perfectly well, provided it's sufficiently distanced to allow the sense of looking on from the outside. A case in point from last week. Going in to Jamie Lloyd's new production of The Duchess of Malfi at the Old Vic, you encounter warning signs by the doors, alerting you to the fact that the show uses a "haze effect". You can hardly miss the fact once you get in, because it's a real pea-souper in there, so I guess the warning isn't intended to forestall sudden shock, like the ones you see about gunshots. It's either there to reassure people that the theatre isn't actually on fire or, possibly, to notify asthmatics that the atmosphere might get a little thick for them.

John Walsh: Killers aren't the result of what's on TV

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The horrific details of how Daniel Bartlam murdered his mother with a claw hammer must have been music to the ears of the anti-video-games lobby. It seemed that the teenager's homicidal onslaught can be held up as proof – at last! – that the depiction of violence leads to acts of violence.

Dom Joly: Join me in my suntrap – everyone else does

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Ienjoyed our brief summer. Within two hours of the sun appearing I was being strong-armed into carrying out all our garden furniture and setting up what we call The French Quarter. In the winter, this is a pebble-strewn car parking area but, come the first hint of sun, and it becomes our "outside room" and all cars are banished to the other end of the courtyard. It is bliss just sitting outside, listening to the first English cricketing collapse of the year and doing nothing. At the back of my mind, however, I know that the deadline for the completion of my book is looming and that I should really be up in my garret slaving away, but the rare English sunshine is not the writer's friend.

Editor-At-Large: Nobody has a stake in Britain until they have grafted too

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The findings of the report into the causes behind last summer's riots fell back on that over-used piece of political jargon, the term "stakeholder". It claims that one of the reasons people didn't take part in the looting was because they "did not want to jeopardise their stake in society". The report's chairman, Dara Singh, a former council leader, says "we must give everyone a stake in society.... When people don't feel they have a reason to stay out of trouble, the consequences for communities can be devastating."

Chris Bryant: Bradford shows that despite Cameron's failings, Labour still has a mountain to climb

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Just about everyone has got it wrong in politics this week. For a start, all this obsession with class is way off the mark. Neither the Budget, with its cut in the 50p top rate of tax and the pasty tax and granny tax, nor the revelation that the Tory Treasurer offered private dinners with the Prime Minister for £250,000, nor even horsegate is really about class, however much we Brits are obsessed with it.

David Lister: Don't bother appointing a new boss at the Arts Council – just abolish this quango

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0100

The Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has decided not to reappoint Dame Liz Forgan as chair of the Arts Council. There is inevitably speculation as to whom he will appoint to succeed her. In the frame are said to be Michael Portillo, the former Conservative minister, Veronica Wadley, the former newspaper editor and already the Arts Council's London chair, and Peter Bazalgette, the television executive, who can boast, if he chooses to, of inventing Big Brother.

Rebecca Tyrrel: 'Who knew that Charlie Brooks' ideal weekend would involve dinner with Jeremy Clarkson?'

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Who knew that Charlie Brooks needs not one wink of sleep? You might have guessed that his duties as husband to Rebekah, riding chum of the Prime Minister, columnist, novelist and recent arrestee on suspicion of conspiring to pervert the course of justice, would infringe on his bye-byes a little. But hardly to the extent he revealed two years ago in a newspaper feature entitled 'My Perfect Weekend'.

Tom Sutcliffe: A makeover that's far from majestic

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Something interesting happens to bad taste as it ages. Its power to affront steadily diminishes, like the falling radioactivity of certain substances, and its curiosity value rises in compensation. And it's not that kitsch will simply ripen into something better given enough time. More often than not you can see that an object is in bad taste but you don't any longer feel implicated by your own failure to judge it.

John Walsh: Me, Ziggy and the passion of pure fandom

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0100

It started with soft percussion ("Bap bap b'bap-bap, bap bap b'bap-bap") into which there suddenly fizzed the slow glissando of a G chord played upside-down on a 12-string guitar ("Zzzzoooinnnggg") and that flat English voice came in: "Pushing through the market square. So many mothers sighing. News had just come over – we had five years left to cry in..." It was so cool, the announcement of the end of the world. And it announced that something else had arrived: a new musical genius for the Seventies generation, a new look and sound to inspire us.

John Walsh: 'Any ginger beer? I tried Tesco, but they said it was age-inappropriate'

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0100

"Oh my days," said Araminta. "Six weeks of school hols and no sign of an adventure. What shall we do?" "I thought I'd be surfing in Polzeath," said Finn disconsolately, "until my parents changed their minds."

Dom Joly: The odds of me doing some DIY? About 100-1

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

I'm not much of a gambling man but, given a tip, I will occasionally have a punt. This I did on Jimmy Nesbitt's horse, Riverside Theatre, at the Cheltenham Festival. I joined an online betting site that offered to match your first bet for free. This was too good to pass up and the bet was duly laid.

Editor-At-Large: ‘Freedom of choice’ means nothing in a class-ridden society

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:00:01 +0000

George Osborne's Budget – a complex set of financial imperatives painstakingly designed to take sickly Britain Plc a tiny, faltering step down to the road to solvency – has opened another bout of class warfare. According to critics, a gang of public school toffs have looked after their mates, while pensioners and the lower orders have been treated with contempt. Swingeing taxes have been imposed on stuff the working class loves – sausage rolls, fruit machines, cheap booze and fags – while top earners get a tax break. A gross simplification, but surely one of the reasons the country is stuck in the doldrums, with the threat of a "double dip" recession, is that we see everything in terms of class.

Tim Walker: The truth is always trending on Twitter