The Evil That Men Do
Having quoted him on Twitter I found myself in a debate about Ezra Pound’s fascism, my opponent seemed to be of the view that his political beliefs, in some way, negated his poetry. Thinking about...
View ArticleThe Prig Imperiale
Priggishness, wrote Marilynne Robinson “is highly predictable because it is nothing else than a consuming loyalty to ideals and beliefs which are in general so widely shared that the spectacle of...
View ArticleThe Resistible Rise of the Corporate Con Artist
Joe, a salesman at a respectable car dealership, is selling you a car. You drive away happy, kicking yourself gently for falling for the finance deal. But the car’s good and, for a few months, you are...
View ArticleThou Shalt Not Cover Thine Ass
Why didn’t George Entwistle say ‘I made a mistake in not monitoring the Savile story more closely. I apologise and I will clear up this mess’? He would have been in a far stronger position and is now...
View ArticleCruel Jerks
Some years ago while promoting my book Aliens I appeared on a TV morning show ‘hosted’ by Fern Britton and Phillip Schofield. On the sofa with me was a woman who claimed she had been abducted by...
View ArticleAmerican Guns
After the school slaughter in Connecticut I saw on Twitter the usual argument, in various forms, that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Notably one @Old_Holborn remarked ‘I own a spoon. I am...
View ArticleChristmas Continues
Jim Al-Khalili in the Guardian explains why, as an atheist, he celebrates Christmas. Fair enough, except he is celebrating no such thing. Like many atheists – especially when they are scientists – he...
View ArticleCompassion, Chris Huhne and Twenty Years of Respect
I commented on Twitter ‘What’s wrong with politics is not the sins of Chris Huhne, it’s the gloating and sneering that will ensue.’ The gloating and sneering ensued and I was criticised for suggesting...
View ArticleThe Bad-Good and the Good-Bad
I am listening to a radio discussion of the movie American Beauty (1999). The general tone is that this was a masterpiece. I see why they are saying this, it was very accomplished but I disliked it,...
View ArticleThe Mormons and Liberty Valance
At least three (possibly more, one tries to forget) of my worst nights in the theatre have involved musicals. The absolute worst was Starlight Express followed, not far behind, by Phantom of the Opera...
View ArticleThe Ecstasy of Bedford Park
I once did a bookshop event with Michael Burleigh. He was ‘in conversation’ with me about The Brain is Wider than the Sky. He opened by saying he had noticed that, at such events, non-fiction writers...
View ArticlePrivacy: The Spavined Nag that Bolted
About a week ago I bought a device called a Securifi Almond from Amazon. I can highly recommend it but for one thing. A couple of days later I was phoned from America by Zafar Sayeed from Securifi...
View ArticleSteven Pinker: Science and the Humanities
I have now read this by Steven Pinker several times and I have managed to work out what I think about it. My thoughts come under three headings: 1)My agreement with one of its most important points –...
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Satyajit Ray’s Hey Presto!
Nige, that most gifted reader, has been reading Willa Cather. ‘It’s like a kind of close-up magic,’ he writes, ‘where you can see exactly what’s going on – nothing special, no tricks, see – and then...
View ArticleThomas Nagel: A Man with a Fine Chest
It is immensely satisfying to see Thomas Nagel writing in the New York Times today simply to restate the arguments of his book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is...
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The ‘Mule’ and Madame X
I can’t stop thinking about the hair of Michaella McCollum, one of the British drug ‘mules’ arrested in Peru. It is extravagant, absurd, a swollen cushion drawing unflattering attention to her long...
View ArticleArianna, Anonymity and Freedom
Arianna Huffington has decided to end commenter anonymity at the Huffington Post. Our conversation, she tells me, was ‘very important in my decision’. In my article wrote, ‘Somebody has to teach the...
View ArticleOne Cannot Live Quite Without Pity
In the early years of Thatcher I remember a conversation with a triumphant right-winger (a self-described bastard) in which he snorted with disdain about ‘people who care.’ I knew what he meant and I...
View ArticleAmerican Tales
Staying at Mountain Village in the Colorado Rockies, I need to catch what the locals call the gondola but we would call a cable car to get down to Telluride. I start at about 9000 feet above sea level....
View ArticleGravity: Post-Humanity in Tight Shorts
Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity – a ‘fall’ blockbuster as they say – is a post-human film. Its two stars – George Clooney and Sandra Bullock – could have been played by robots. Clooney plays a standard...
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