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I’ve been feeling rather nostalgic this week. I had a lovely holiday last week, thanks for asking, and part of it was remembering that distant, strange thing of not working like a whipped cur from dawn to midnight every single fucking day, which reminded me of being young. And listening to the news, I was […]

RULES is rules. I can feel weasel words like ‘appropriate’ lurking. Of course, the first thing I did on Sunday, the very first thing after Scotland were so unjustly denied their rightful victory over Australia in the rugby World Cup quarter final, was pick up the phone and start dialling Art’s number… For the first […]

LOVE is as much absence as presence, we all know that. And in the end love must deal with the greatest absence. Arthur Kay, this place’s guru in matters concerning the Coconut Eating Crab (the malevolent deity who rules our lives on this lump of rock), was called to the clawed court last week. Arthur […]

THANKS to my Scottish heritage, I have, all my life, been a member of sport’s Anybody But England club. Yes, I cheered for Australia in the 2003 rugby world cup final. Now, in the age of the PR agencies who are turning rugby union into an imitation of the worst of soccer, it’s even easier […]

WHAT has become of journalism? Large swathes of it has been killed by money-men, and not very competent money-men at that, of course. Every time they cut back, they lose readers and business, but the loss of readers and business that follows every cutback comes, each time, as the most amazing surprise to the accountants. […]

THERE are few things in life of which I have been certain. One of them is this: be very careful where you put your old man. Now I will be brutally frank with you, and say that there have been times when Stuart Junior has seen the light of day – however briefly – in […]

WELL, the world is ending. Jeremy Corbyn, according to reliable sources, is made of bees. His beard contains particles of food eaten in 1955 that could cause anaphylactic shock to babies if he is in the same town as them. He beat his rich parents with sandals made of lentils because they sent him to […]

I DON’T know whether to laugh or cry. Really. When I saw that photo, of the dead little boy face down in the surf, what could I or any parent do but cry? I was as moved as anybody, moved to rage and frustration. But the ensuing, developing reaction to that photo? The Diana-like hysteria? Suddenly […]

I’M torn about this one: on the face of it, the news that the United Nations is to investigate the lying liar Iain Duncan Smith’s reforms of welfare payments to disabled people because his vile legislation violated basic human rights is splendid news. I can think of several things that would cheer me up immensely: […]

The end of the century of relationship between the national broadcaster and the national weather service could not be more symbolic of the sad decline of our price-of-everything-value-of-nothing dumbed-down Britain. The BBC has ended its contract with the Met Office because the BBC is obliged to undergo a competitive tender process. Decades of loyalty, of […]