Archive for month: August, 2012

Heroes and villains

27 August, 2012 (10:31) | All articles | By: Stuart Fraser

The Stranglers, of course, thought there were no more heroes. I prefer David Bowie’s view that we can all be heroes. The great and godlike Cohen talks of lonely and quarrelsome heroes, each beneath his ordinary load. Are there heroes any more? There’s poor ‘locked-in’ Tony Nicklinson, who died this week, bearing his far from […]

This Sporting Life

20 August, 2012 (11:08) | All articles | By: Stuart Fraser

There has been much debate about the conflict between the sport in the Olympics over the past few weeks, compared to the alleged ‘sport’ in soccer, prompted by the start of the Premier League season on Saturday. There’s a problem for a start: August 18th, for goodness’ sake. If we didn’t live in such a […]

It’s a kind of magic

13 August, 2012 (15:12) | All articles | By: Stuart Fraser

Well, clearly it’s been a triumph. It must have been. When everybody goes all gooey despite George Michael, Kate Moss, Brian May of Queen with the beard of the Brother Who Must Not Be Named on his head and, God help us all, The Spice Girls, it really must have been. Personally, I thought the closing ceremony was […]

The good, the Spice Girls and Boris on a wire

6 August, 2012 (17:54) | All articles | By: Stuart Fraser

Have I been seduced by the Olympic miracle? Well, let’s look at the good things the Olympics has brought. Nobody’s watching ITV any more. The evening news doesn’t over-labour us with poor people or conflict or economic misery or, indeed, news. It just smiles at us and shows us happy people. It is a great […]