For better or worse, the TV quiz show is the perfect cultural expression of our age. Like the knowledge they require of contestants, they are too easily dismissed as trivial, but you only have to scratch the surface to discover …
Why you want to be a millionaire
For better or worse, the TV quiz show is the perfect cultural expression of our age. Like the knowledge they require of contestants, they are too easily dismissed as trivial, but you only have to scratch the surface to discover …
Russell Brand and the presumption of innocence
Should the presumption of innocence apply to Russell Brand in the court of public opinion, as it should in a court of law? It is a question that has sharply divided social media this past week, and both sides have …
The lies of trauma merchants
My colleagues and I filed into the vice president’s office at the publishing house where I worked, crowding around a television that was turned to ABC. The year was 2005. The mood was giddy, as if we were about to …
Will Dominic Cummings destroy Westminster?
Can a dissident operate openly within the system he wishes to destroy? For revolutionary-turned-Substacker Dominic Cummings, wrestling with whether or not The Startup Party he has floated on his Substack blog is a mission worth pursuing, the auguries are surely …
Will Dominic Cummings destroy Westminster?
Can a dissident operate openly within the system he wishes to destroy? For revolutionary-turned-Substacker Dominic Cummings, wrestling with whether or not The Startup Party he has floated on his Substack blog is a mission worth pursuing, the auguries are surely …
Why we sacrifice young girls
Age 13, Judy Wiegand was married off to the older man who sexually abused her. Age 15, already a mother, amid the indifference of neighbours and the police to her husband’s violent mistreatment of her, Judy finally fled when her …
Immigration is religion’s only hope
When my father was going through the process of becoming an Elder in the United Methodist Church, he was required to take courses on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. One course involved a presentation on how white people needed to make …
How American liberals can win
For years now, American conservatives have been engulfed by an intellectual civil war, with various shades of the “New Right” fighting to overthrow “Conservatism Inc.”. What is less well-understood, however, are the changes taking place on the centre-left: the broad …
Keir Starmer still doesn’t get Brexit
France has been swept up in a mood of cross-Channel rapprochement. As the country hosts the Rugby World Cup, its minister of sport has shown a special solicitude towards English visitors, hoping to atone for the mistreatment of English football …
The Noughties enabled Russell Brand
Back in the Noughties, pop culture was hard and nasty. The internet was corroding the mystique of fame, and the public wanted to read — in the words of Jessica Callan, one of The Mirror’s original 3AM Girl gossip columnists …
Elon Musk hasn’t betrayed Ukraine
It was September 2022, and Kyiv was determined to attack the Russian naval fleet at the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Their plan was straightforward: guided by SpaceX’s Starlink satellite system, six drone submarines would sneak through Russia’s defences and detonate …
My night out with the Proud Boys
When I first met the leader of the Proud Boys, he was relaxing over a burger and chicken wings in an Irish bar, wearing his trademark mirror shades and a T-shirt emblazoned with the words: “Democrats eat and fuck children.” …
Russell Brand’s sexual apocalypse
What a tremendous shock the weekend’s revelations about Russell Brand’s treatment of women must have been to the bosses of Channel 4, the BBC, and any number of newspaper executives. I mean, who would have thought it? Sure, this was …
Peter Thiel has launched a class war
“We’re building a city,” Dryden Brown declared last June, with the air of a man unfazed by the enormity of his words. “We’re building a city from scratch. Somewhere in the Mediterranean.” Brown, who has spent years explaining to investors …