My favourite part of Spotify Wrapped day is psychoanalysing my peers. Oh, your top artist was Alice in Chains, was it? When was the last time you spoke to your father? Lana Del Rey is pretty high on your list, …
Will an Etsy witch find you true love?
Something wicked this way comes. Across the land, jilted maidens are engaging in digital necromancy, wreaking revenge on past lovers and using £5 spells to bewitch Hinge situationships into confessing true love. Welcome to the coven of the Etsy witch. …
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 …
Why does hot girl summer have to end?
We are all used to hearing about the dire plight of Gen Z. They are addicted to social media. Fragile and over-therapised. Obsessed with identity. Activists without wisdom. Reactive without nuance. That’s how the story goes. But the animal spirit …
How looksmaxxing went mainstream
Let’s start with some facts. Trying to look your best is a normal, even admirable effort. Caring for your appearance is a sign that you respect not only yourself but those around you. A culture of young people interested in …
The march of Kamala’s brides
In a recent appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump caused a furore by questioning the racial “identity” of Democrat Kamala Harris. “Is she Indian or is she black?” Trump wondered. “I respect either …
No, smoking isn’t back
Is smoking having a renaissance? At her recent birthday party, brat du jour Charli XCX was gifted a bouquet chaotically arranged with cigarettes. Meanwhile in Paris, the Olympic golfer Charley Hull was prevented by le woke mob from enjoying her …
A plague of fallacies has devoured the internet
We lived, without knowing it then, on the other side of the digital chasm. I know the first time I heard the word “internet”: on a trek through Ness Woods in Northern Ireland. My father, self-taught and insatiably curious, told …
Labour has broken Gen Z’s heart
Summer has finally arrived in London. Beer gardens are packed, Lime bikes whizz through disgruntled traffic. There is a quiet optimism: the election is soon. For the first time that we can remember, we might not have a Tory government. …
The Republican’s foolish war on the ICC
It’s not hard to understand why the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, took the unprecedented decision to seek an indictment of Israel’s prime minister and defence minister. To borrow from Bob Dylan, the times have changed, and sometimes …
Inside the Gen Z sex war
Women to the Left, men to the Right. And heaven forbid there is any crossover. These days, young people are floundering in their sex-based political silos wanting different things: girls are still seeking equality and boys miss being the good …
How TikTok is erasing girlhood
A few weeks ago, I saw my two nephews. My mum keeps a big box of our old toys, and the three-year-old loves the kitchen set: he delights in plonking radioactive-looking broccoli florets on plates or, learning from trips to …
The curse of Valentine’s Day
How St Valentine came to be associated with romance is disputed. Some suggest the third-century martyr’s feast “Christianised” a Roman fertility festival — but the first mention of his day in connection with love comes more than 1,000 years after …
Who will fight for Britain?
The year I was born, one of the most famous New Wave songs of all time was released: Elvis Costello’s “Oliver’s Army”. It was written after Costello visited Northern Ireland during the Troubles. There, he described seeing “mere boys walking …
Gen Z’s radical race politics
It’s a dreary day in a provincial English town. A tracksuit-wearing teenage boy affecting an exaggerated version of the “Jafaican”, which has replaced Cockney as the capital’s working-class dialect, asks a similarly dressed individual: “What nationality is the best to …