Browsing all posts in Culture.

Bye, then. Shut the TARDIS door behind you.

A regeneration is a big deal for Dr Who and its fans, and I hadn’t been so excited since Logopolis. And yet by the time Matt Smith took over the role on New Year’s Day, I was hoovering David Tennant out of the TARDIS like an overstayed party guest. I never wanted to see his overexposed pointy Scottish face again.

Festive Jukebox

So did you download Jer McElderry’s ‘Winner’s Song’, or did you Rage Against the Machine? Either way, you’ve given Sony a Christmas bonus, so that’s nice. But you can feel a warm festive glow if you kept Cowell’s soma-coma pop pap off the top spot. Charlie Brooker explains why. I bought neither. Yet I have [...]

Why Dannii’s critics are the ones guilty of homophobia

Accusing the gay icon Danii Minogue of homophobia is a little like accusing Joanna Lumley of being anti-Gurkha. The Twitter backlash against her reveals the prejudice of the viewers - not the X Factor judge.

Throw away your TV

The BBC drove me to it. It’s not just Gaza - but that was the final straw. The BBC’s eccentric, inconsistent, cravenly partial decision not to screen the DEC Gaza Appeal is just the latest sign that the world’s best broadcaster has become a weakened, withered, cowering institution. From sexed-up dossiers to mis-named Blue Peter [...]

A Leonard Cohen Christmas

I regret not being able to make it to the Nice Jazz Festival this year for a number of reasons. Top of the list is that Leonard Cohen was performing there. Unfortunately for him - but fortunately for the fans - he was the victim of a $5m embezzlement that forced him out of his [...]

Get your Mackintosh

Ah, the first sign of summer. No, not another public sector strike: the first book launch of the season. My friend Keith, widely touted (by me) as the new J.K. Rowling, launched his first book, Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London, from the roof terrace of his local primary school in East London last [...]

Star Ninj

Happy Summer Solstice, everyone!

QDOS to Guillermo Del Toro

I was lecturing on social media at Birkbeck last night, and called in for a quick Absinthe Mojito on the way home at the new Concrete bar at the Hayward Gallery. As you do. I was meeting Julie, who had been to the slightly more glamorous World Cinema Awards on the South Bank, with Jonathan [...]

America Unchained

On Monday I went with my old school friend, Julie, to the RSA, as we often do. On this occasion, it was to see an even older school friend, Dave Gorman, screening and talking about his latest project. (Now, we are talking 25-30 years ago, when I lived in Stafford, before I moved south and [...]

Selection Box

Yes, the forced observance of someone else’s religious festival brings out the Richard Dawkins in me. But I actually like many of the non-religious traditions of the season, including festive food, family gatherings (arguments over borderline-racism aside, which seems to be another tradition in my family); and, of course, presents.
How was yours? Did Santa bring [...]