If you were to judge a country by the grim piety of its journalistic depictions, you’d swear Northern Ireland were one big funeral, begetting nothing but more funerals and all of us professional keeners. It’s not that the region isn’t …
The tragedy of body entrepreneurs
Katie Price is, ostensibly, in the news because of her finances. But Price has rarely been out of the news since the Nineties, when she became famous as a Page 3 girl. Determinedly, assiduously, she crafted herself into the perfect …
Nick Cave’s doctrine of doubt
Strange are the thoughts that steal upon you, a thousand feet underground in a Polish salt mine. Under the glow of chandeliers, surrounded by samizdat saints and kings, entire chapels carved in rock salt by generations of miners, I found …
It’s Disney Girl vs Oasis Man
Finding myself at a birthday party for much younger celebrants this weekend, I felt a wraith among the living. My life’s ambition to look like Michelle Pfeiffer had finally been realised — only it was the Stardust Pfeiffer, a 5,000-year-old …
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 …
Great power politics is an illusion
Everyone of a certain age who passed through British secondary education will have spent a few months learning about the League of Nations, which, to my knowledge, is not a subject of academic study anywhere else. Created by the Treaty …
The men who risk everything
Risk for me is an occupational hazard. Why would I film myself running through a front line in eastern Ukraine to a soundtrack of roaring shells and my own cardio-averse panting? (Hint: it’s not the money, trust me.) What would …
Why shouldn’t AI write a film?
“This machine can produce a 5,000-word story, all typed and ready for despatch, in 30 seconds. How can the writers compete with that?” So asks Roald Dahl in his short story The Great Automatic Grammatizator, published in 1953.
The eponymous …
Are women being forced to freeze their eggs?
“No woman goes running with thrill into egg-freezing,” says Professor Marcia Inhorn. “A lot of these women would rather not be doing it.”
And yet it is the fastest growing fertility treatment in the UK. Between 2019 and 2021, egg-freezing …
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 …
The triumph of the Neotoddlers
Across the West, protests are getting larger, more frequent and more disruptive. Over the weekend, the UK saw nationwide anti-immigration riots in which mosques and other buildings were set aflame. A few days before that, Just Stop Oil activists sprayed …
The Olympics are not safe for women
It looked like a man punching a woman. Algeria’s Imane Khelif, at 5’10”, is only two inches taller than Italy’s Angela Carini; but watching the two in the ring of the women’s 66kg boxing at the Olympics, the difference between …
Freud is coming for your kids
According to an old joke, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are enjoying some pastries in a Viennese coffee shop. The younger analyst hesitantly asks the elder: “Tell me, Herr Professor Freud… vat lies between fear und sex?”. With furrowed brow, …
The predictive power of dreams
If you happen to be an occultist, as of course I am, one thing you’ll encounter fairly often is people asking you what their dreams mean. I’ve made a habit of shrugging, saying that I have no idea, and for …
The grizzly truth about the West
The past month of American politics have been utter chaos. Former president Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt by a matter of millimetres. Joe Biden went to Las Vegas, reportedly got Covid, and disappeared completely from public view. A day …