Christina Patterson

Christina Patterson joined The Independent in 2003 as deputy literary editor and is now a full-time writer and columnist. A former director of the Poetry Society, and literary programmer at the Southbank Centre, she writes on culture, politics, books, travel and the arts and does the weekly "big interview" for the Arts & Books section. Interviewees have included Martin Amis, Alastair Campbell, Werner Herzog, David Starkey and Bryn Terfel.

Christina Patterson: Why it's hard to be a blonde in the City

Two tales of the City. In the first, an attractive blonde meets a City financier, and is very, very cross because she is treated like "an Eastern European mail-order bride". In the second, an attractive blonde meets a City financier and is very, very cross because, she says, he tried to kiss her, even though he doesn't fancy blondes. Dearie me. It's hard to be a blonde in the City.

Recently by Christina Patterson

Christina Patterson: Why negative thinking makes the world better

Saturday, 7 November 2009

Who started the Iraq war? A man who picked out a rug to reflect his 'optimism'

Christina Patterson: My boss is discriminating against me

Thursday, 5 November 2009

Newspaper offices waste quite a lot of paper. So, in fact, do newspapers, as yesterday's splendid pine tree becomes (depending on your point of view) today's finely crafted chronicle of our times, or semi-literate showbiz goss, and tomorrow's guinea-pig toilet.

Christina Patterson: Why we can't resist a little dice with death

Saturday, 31 October 2009

They need a ‘gap year’ because they’ve barely been allowed past their front door

Why politics isn't just a game for the boys

Saturday, 24 October 2009

Christina Patterson: We’ve seen what happens when a gung-ho, risk-ridden male culture prevails.

Christina Patterson: If you want to be adored, just shut up

Thursday, 22 October 2009

So, poor old Hollywood's got its knickers in a twist about Twitter. The biggest, slickest marketing machine in the world can't keep its hands off a medium that's all about youth, and being plugged in, and being hip, that's also, like, instant, and, more importantly, free, which is totally cool, but there's just one little problem. The stars.

Christina Patterson: Art, money and a marriage made in hell

Saturday, 17 October 2009

The market has survived. The Kapoors and the Quinns are flying out the door

Christina Patterson: Energy, drive, decisiveness – and knowledge of libel laws

Thursday, 15 October 2009

"The culture of our company has been built around the qualities of the markets in which we work. We encourage our people to be energetic; driven and decisive and pursuing opportunity; respectful both of the significance of what we do and of the individual needs and qualities of our customers and suppliers."

Christina Patterson: The night a thief stole more than just a handbag

Saturday, 10 October 2009

I’ve pressed more numbers, in more ‘menus’, than a code breaker at Bletchley

Christina Patterson: Let's preserve the dotty, dying don

Thursday, 8 October 2009

If I were rewriting Dante's Inferno, I'd ensure that the catalogue of punishments included a PhD. Perhaps for the bankers – the men in Armani, seeking instant fortunes from hot air – a seven-year sentence, in corduroys, in libraries, on semi-colons in Finnegans Wake. There'd be no Starbucks. No Blackberries. No shrieking or baying or bragging. Nothing except piles and piles of lit-crit, time stretching out to an invisible, distant horizon, and silence.

Christina Patterson: I've reached a tipping point with tipping

Thursday, 1 October 2009

It starts the minute you arrive at your hotel. The suitcase that you dragged for miles to the bus stop, and then up and down the stairs on the Tube, and then down endless corridors and broken travelators at the airport, and then to the information desk at the other end, and to the bus stop, or the train, or perhaps the taxi, is, the minute you arrive in reception, whisked away from you by a man in a uniform, who carries it (but it's got wheels!) to the lift and then a few yards to your room. He opens the door, waves at the room as if he had, like God, just that minute conjured it from the air, and pauses.

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