Howard Jacobson on The Independent

GCSEs are a pointless waste of time

A few facts. Last year almost 70% of 16 year olds achieved at least 5 GCSE passes with grades A*-C. ...

Asylum seekers: When the questions tell us so much more than the answers

For the last four years I've been paying my karmic dues (I would say "contributing to the big societ...

Thanks to The Sun, for enriching each of our lives

Those at the super-soaraway Sun are, yet again, making outlandish claims that they’ve changed the wo...

Howard Jacobson: Asking for pornography that's life-affirming is like asking for tragedy with a happy ending

25 May 2012 08:00 PM

Porn that’s good to us, enhancing rather than degrading, by definition ceases to be porn

Howard Jacobson: Nothing is beyond a man who will take his wife on a date to a restaurant like Oslo Court

18 May 2012 08:00 PM

Maybe our old view of the PM as out of touch is no longer safe. I am seeing him in a new light

Howard Jacobson: Thrillers always sell you a pup. As with sex, the delivery never lives up to the promise

11 May 2012 08:00 PM

Homeland: so well-made, well-acted, but in the end, at the mercy of the unsubtlety of its form

Howard Jacobson: Men – once you run out of fingers to count your sexual conquests, it's time to stop

04 May 2012 08:00 PM

What happens in the dark is not for gossiping or bragging about in the light

Howard Jacobson: A man's face, like a book's cover, can be enough

27 April 2012 08:00 PM

Was it John Terry’s reputation that caused him to be sent off? My suspicion is that it was his expression

Howard Jacobson: Old age is coming, but where are my carers?

21 April 2012 12:00 AM

Beneath the show of senility, I remain the palpitating boy who never wanted a pension

Howard Jacobson: I've played only once, but I'm a lifelong cricketer

14 April 2012 12:00 AM

What’s charming about cricket’s fraternity is it has a keen sense of the ridiculous and excludes no one

Howard Jacobson: Don't get too close to your enemy's enemy

07 April 2012 12:00 AM

I think I’d go for Galloway – briefly – if I were a woman. Strong, suave, tanned to within an inch of his life

Howard Jacobson: When did we stop seeing modesty as a virtue?

31 March 2012 12:00 AM

If there’s one thing a parvenu has to do – otherwise what’s he risen from nowhere to somewhere for? – it’s boast

Howard Jacobson: Tolerance shouldn't stop us challenging hatred

03 March 2012 12:00 AM

Baroness Tonge’s sympathy for the Palestinian cause is considered to cancel out the sin of antipathy to others

Howard Jacobson: Deliver me from these Kate Middleton clones

25 February 2012 12:00 AM

This being London Fashion Week, unless last week was London Fashion Week, we attend with respect to the words of Vivienne Westwood.

Howard Jacobson: Beckham's package leaves a lot to be desired

18 February 2012 12:00 AM

The subject of this week's dissertation is the banality of beauty once it is harnessed to the needs of commerce. Or, put another way, David Beckham's dick.

Howard Jacobson: Dickens is proof that humour improves with age

11 February 2012 12:00 AM

In total agreement with Terence Blacker's remarks earlier this week in these pages about "a new fear of seriousness" in our culture leading to an overabundance of feeble, inappropriate and half-hearted "humour".

Howard Jacobson: A question neither I – nor anyone – could answer

04 February 2012 12:00 AM

It was impossible not to think you were never more than the thickness of one person’s skin away from torment

Howard Jacobson: A misleading idea of beauty and desire

28 January 2012 12:00 AM

Regarding the iconography of the Page 3 girl, I am – just in case there was ever any doubt about it – entirely of the party of those who find such sexual objectification demeaning. And not only to women. It demeans men to suppose that's what they want to look at. And the truth is – no matter that this is to give away a closely guarded secret – they don't.