According to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s housekeeper her employer “likes it quite stiff”. It turns out she’s talking about the starched crease on his boxer shorts but it might as well have been his attitude to the proverbial upper lip.
We learn …
Why the Left always takes the MAGA bait
The current state of the American political discourse is best understood through the lens of the 1987 movie The Princess Bride — or more specifically, one scene therein. It’s the part where Miracle Max is decompensating over the insistence of …
How liberals killed the talk show
The day after the presidential election, Stephen Colbert — ostensibly a comic — opened his CBS show by addressing his audience like a doctor delivering a terminal diagnosis. “Hey there, how are you doing?” he asked, gazing softly into the …
I was the target of Guardian misinformation
It was quite the flounce. “This is something we have been considering for a while,” The Guardian intoned with the gravity of an Old Testament prophet as it declared in an editorial that the organisation would no longer be posting …
The rebel cult of Murakami
For middle-aged Japanophiles, the recent Japan boom among the young can at times feel exhausting. Japanese pop, rapid and relentless, sounds like something put together by toddlers on a sugar binge. Meanwhile, the popularity in the West of manga and …
Thomas Mann predicted the New World Order
“What was it, then? What was in the air? A love of quarrels. Acute petulance. Nameless impatience. A universal penchant for nasty verbal exchanges and outbursts of rage, even fisticuffs.” Near the end of his novel The Magic Mountain, …
Why are we Polanski hypocrites?
This is a tale of censorship. In 2019, Roman Polanski’s film about the Dreyfus Affair, An Officer and a Spy, was nominated for 12 César awards and won the Grand Jury prize at Venice. But, due to #MeToo, it was …
Trumpism won’t save Middle America
Grey squirrels don’t command much love, here in the 51st state. When Brits make memes about them, it’s usually a visual shorthand for strong views on immigration. But in their native North America they’re firmly associated with Disney princesses, and …
America is tortured by demons
The United States is the land of conspiracy theories, not least when it’s busy electing a president. Such theories are a secular version of the idea of a malevolent God, for which the world is a sinister place but at …
How Gen Z fell for Poland’s memes
If I say “Poland” — what do you think of? Marie Curie? Copernicus? Pierogi? All lovely in their own way, but not exactly cool. Now, however, everything is changing. From dank memes online to unintentionally patriotic rap songs, the …
What the AfD gets wrong about Bauhaus
What a sorry mess we are in. The other week, plans to celebrate the centenary of the Bauhaus’ arrival in Dessau were met with opposition. Proposing a motion called “The Aberration of Modernity” — which was rejected — in the …
Why women love Ryan Murphy’s Monsters
Crass, titillating and (at best) casual with the truth, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story takes an instance of real-life cruelty and violence and twists it into oversexed entertainment. It implies an incestuous connection between the two brothers whose …
Why I miss the bitchy fashion police
Do you remember a time when women on television could be exhilaratingly rude about what other women looked like without everyone else being Deeply Disappointed? On Wednesday I had a flashback to this distant state of affairs as I saw …
What feminists get wrong about kink
If Oxford’s needlessly infamous sex-party scene (think the Piers Gav, or termly ketamine-fuelled fumblings in someone’s Cowley living room) is anything to go by, it’s a wonder anyone at all takes kink culture seriously. My sources assure me that spending …
Keir Starmer is haunted by England
How do you know you’re in a ghost story? It isn’t always obvious. The ghost, after all, usually doesn’t appear until the very end. But there are signs. Perhaps it’s the time of year, or the Ulster rain pawing at …