The other day, I was pulled up short by a poster on the tube. I didn’t clock what it was advertising, but I was struck by the text: “Guess who’s back? Back again. Guess who’s back? Tell your friends.” It’s …
Don’t punish Kanye West
Some images of poor mental health from relatively recent films: in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a deeply traumatised teenage boy (Logan Lerman), who was sexually abused and suffered clinical depression, kisses a sparkly Emma Watson and stands up, …
Don’t fall for the Isis Matchmaker
I’ll never forget the moment I uncovered Umm Muthanna Al-Britannia’s real name. Back in early 2015, she was a brazen British propagandist and recruiter for the Islamic State. I’d been tracking her for months, almost marvelling at her shamelessness: she …
Lucian Freud is finally exposed
In late 1940, the 18-year-old Lucian Freud sent a series of highly decorated letters to the renowned poet and critic Stephen Spender. The pair had become fast friends and, despite their 12-year age gap, would later become lovers. In their …
American Gigolo is no longer sexy
Julian Kay is a thrillingly charming escort, as comfortable at international art auctions as he is on the pull-up bar. His speciality is older women, and when one asks him, in one of those old hotel restaurant booths so cushioned …
The twilight of the Disney princess
On Sunday, as hundreds of thousands queued to see the mortal remains of our Queen lying in state, I stood in a shorter queue, to see a different queen in the flesh. The occasion was my daughter’s long-planned birthday excursion …
Why artists sell out
“I’m not green-lighting anything I don’t understand,” says Barry Lapidus, a studio executive at Paramount Pictures. “We’re going to stop developing these rarefied flights of fancy and start applying some good business sense to what we do here.”
This dialogue …
Nick Cave’s divine rebirth
Nick Cave defies rock music’s law of gravity. A few weeks ago I went to see Cave and the Bad Seeds headline All Points East in Victoria Park, London and came away thinking it was the best I’d ever seen …
Richard Osman’s common people
In 1984, Clive James tabled the Barry Manilow Law: no-one you know likes Barry Manilow, while the rest of the world worships the ground on which he walks. This adage can now be updated. Until very recently, I didn’t know …
The dark side of the art world
I was visiting an exhibition last week when I came across a painting I had handled, several years back. I knew it well from my time working in the art world, so it was a bit like bumping into an …
Why is Edward Enninful editing Vogue?
Why are the models so thin? Why are the clothes so expensive? And what is the point of fashion? These were questions I had to answer pretty much every day for the decade I worked as a fashion journalist, and …
In conversation with Philip Roth
Perhaps too much of Philip Roth’s energies were devoted to explaining or defending himself. You could not be with Philip for any period of time before he would enlist you in the agenda of “defending” him — against a plethora …
America will always fear Caesar
In my own unreliable cultural memory, the age of Hamilton enthusiasm in American life belongs emphatically to Barack Obama’s presidency in its optimistic phase — to the last period of unabashed liberal patriotism and confidence.
In reality, though, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s …
The last American aristocrat
Not long after the Trump election I was invited to a dinner party of the sort I’d only recently learned existed. Here’s how it goes. The host is wealthy, as are half the guests, and the other half are intellectuals …
Interview 1741 – Keith Knight Presents The Voluntaryist Handbook
Keith Knight of Don’t Tread on Anyone joins us to discuss The Voluntaryist Handbook (available for free on Odysee but support the work by buying a copy)
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