Howard Jacobson

Profile: Full name: Howard Jacobson Area of interest: Society, values, cultural issues (esp. Jewish culture, class identity) Journals/Organisation: The Independent Email: h.jacobson@independent.co.uk Personal website: Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/howard-jacobson Blog: Representation: Networks:

Biography: About: Education: Stand Grammar School, Whitefield; Downing College, Cambridge (studied under F.R. Leavis) Career: Worked as an academic before becoming a successful author and commentator "An acerbic cultural critic with a passion for literature and art, he is known for his ebullient wit as well as his unique take on the Jewish experience in Britain." (source: The Independent) Contemporarywriters.com: biography (British Council) Current position/role: Commentator also writes/written for: Other roles/Main role: Novelist, Broadcaster Other activities: Disclosures: Viewpoints/Insight: Contemporarywriters.com: critical perspective (British Council) “...Our funniest, most overlooked, most furious living writer”, profile by Allison Pearson, The Daily Telegraph, 27th April 2003 Something Jewish.co: Interview by Elizabeth Manus for Nextbook.org Open2.net: interview for Ian McMillan's Writing Lab (BBC - Open University) (AUDIO/mp3/text) Jewish Book week: Howard Jacobson in conversation with Peter Florence, 2007 (AUDIO/podcast) The Clive James show: Howard Jacobson, writer, interview (VIDEO) Broadcast media: BBC2: 'Arena' television documentary on Howard Jacobson, 'My Son the Novelist', 1985 ITV: 'South Bank Show' edition about The Mighty Walzer, 1999 Non-fiction books 'Roots Schmoots: Journeys among the Jews' and 'Seriously funny: from the ridiculous to the sublime' have inspired related television series Channel 4: 'Howard Jacobson Takes on the Turner', 2000 ITV: 'South Bank Show' special 'Why the Novel Matters', 2002 Video: Controversy/Criticism: Extract from following article (1): 'I wonder if I might take robust issue with an article my fellow columnist Johann Hari wrote last week, in which he complained about a “campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people”' Howard Jacobson: If there really is a smear campaign to try to silence the critics of Israel, it isn't working - Call those who disagree with you ‘witch-hunters’ often enough and they will see you as one in turn - 10th May 2008 Johann Hari's article: Israel is suppressing a secret it must face - How did a Jewish state founded 60 years ago end up throwing filth at cowering Palestinians? - The Independent, 28th April 2008 see also Melanie Phillips comments: Whoops, what a giveaway Spectator.co, 8th May 2008 Awards/Honours: Booker Prize winner 2010, appreciation here by Boyd Tonkin Everyman Wodehouse Award for comic writing, 1999 for 'The Mighty Walzer'; Wingate Literary Prize, 2005, 2006, 2007 for 'Kalooki Nights' Scoops: Other:

Books & Debate: Fiction: Coming From Behind (1983) OCLC 10017578 Peeping Tom (1984) OCLC 11624058 Redback (1986) OCLC 29004273 The Very Model of a Man (1992) OCLC 30816297 No More Mister Nice Guy (1998) OCLC 39223348 The Mighty Walzer (1999) OCLC 59402448 Who's Sorry Now (2002) OCLC 48753912 The Making of Henry (2004) OCLC 55502757 Kalooki Nights (2006) OCLC 73503418 The Finkler question OCLC 619924695, Man Booker nominated novel, Bloomsbury, 2010, reviewed in The Sunday Times by Adam Lively here Non-fiction: Shakespeare's Magnanimity: Four Tragic Heroes, Their Friends and Families (1978) OCLC 3845150 (co-author Wilbur Sanders) In the Land of Oz (1987) OCLC 15660854 Roots Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews (1994) OCLC 59846508 Seriously Funny: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime (1997) OCLC 36780833 ✒ Howard's page at Amazon ✒ Latest work: Whatever It Is, I Don't Like It: The Best of Howard Jacobson, published by Bloomsbury, 2011 Speaking/Appearances: Debate: Intelligence Squared debate: America has lost its moral authority (with: Matthew Parris, Will Self, Professor John Gray, Simon Schama, Martin Amis), 29th April 2008

The Independent: Column name: Remit/Info: Society, values, cultural issues (esp. Jewish culture, class identity) Section: Role: Commentator Pen-name: Email: h.jacobson@independent.co.uk Website: The Independent / Howard Jacobson Commissioning editor: Day published: Saturday Regularity: Weekly Column format: Average length: 1100 words

Articles: 2012 Nothing is beyond a man who will take his wife on a date to a restaurant like Oslo Court - Maybe our old view of the PM as out of touch is no longer safe. I am seeing him in a new light - 19th May Men – once you run out of fingers to count your sexual conquests, it's time to stop - What happens in the dark is not for bragging about in the light - 5th May A man's face, like a book's cover, can be enough - Was it John Terry’s reputation that caused him to be sent off? My suspicion is that it was his expression - 28th April Old age is coming, but where are my carers? - Beneath the show of senility, I remain the palpitating boy who never wanted a pension - 21st April Don't get too close to your enemy's enemy - I think I’d go for Galloway – briefly – if I were a woman. Strong, suave, tanned to within an inch of his life - 7th April When did we stop seeing modesty as a virtue? - If there’s one thing a parvenu has to do – otherwise what’s he risen from nowhere to somewhere for? – it’s boast - 31st March Tolerance shouldn't stop us challenging hatred - Baroness Tonge’s sympathy for the Palestinian cause is considered to cancel out the sin of antipathy to others - 3rd March Deliver me from these Kate Middleton clones - You can’t blame the young for not looking like who they are - 25th February Beckham's package leaves a lot to be desired - When it comes to the sexual organs, the only sin is frivolity. I don’t, of course, expect Beckham to agree - 18th February Dickens is proof that humour improves with age - No praise of Dickens is too high, no celebration of his genius excessive - 11th February A question neither I – nor anyone – could answer - It was impossible not to think you were never more than the thickness of one person’s skin away from torment - 4th February A misleading idea of beauty and desire - Men are not aroused by Page 3 girls - 28th January Can't Jews be allowed to remember their past? - In Lithuania – where once even the Nazis had to avert their gaze – swastikas now have legal blessing - 21st January Put down that iPhone and act like a human - Do we really need science to tell us that technology can impair the brain? - 14th January We'll miss the sensuous pleasure of a real book - Being able to carry several thousand books around with you on a Kindle is not to be sneezed at - 7th January

Articles: 2011 A passion for trainers that amounts to a threat - For the Chinese, 2011 was the Year of Rabbit.So what was it for the British? - 31st December The near-religious zeal that drives the godless - Richard Dawkins’ use of Hitchens’ illness strikes me as tasteless - 24th December Forget the polar bear. I once faked a kangaroo - Of course TV fakes things – did anyone really suppose otherwise? - 17th December Can we just stop talking about a 'Lost Decade'? - We have survived, and with nobility, hard--Jonni 13:05, 31 December 2011 (EST) times before - 10th December King Lear went mad for less than this hell - How did the simple act of making a purchase become such an ordeal? - 3rd December Pitiless conduct by people devoid of imagination - The popular press stimulates a gross curiosity in us of which we should be ashamed - 26th November The futility of trying to escape one's destiny - Last week the cricket writer Peter Roebuck died - 19th November Sorry, Naomi, we can't dance the world better - 'I too once danced in a ring." The line isn't mine, though I have often felt it belongs to me - 12th November Let's move the tents to Simon Cowell's backyard - Never yet have I shared a view on any subject with a tent person, and yet I agree with the 'Occupiers.' - 5th November We do comic explosiveness our own way - Here's why England has never produced its own Woody Allen - 29th October A gadget is just a gadget - Being iTuned day and night diminishes our humanity. It does not enhance it - 15th October The rouge this artist wears is deceptive - What could be wilder at an art show than a word in favour of niceness? - 8th October A life without cheese is no life at all - Unless it takes the skin off the roof of your mouth, it isn’t Cheddar, in my view - 1st October Remembrance of panforte past - A word about Mantovan cuisine in general: until you get the hang of it, it can disappoint. It is rural and austere, much like the city itself – farm and fortress food - 17th September Wounds of school that never heal - In memory I see those first mornings back as colder and darker than they must have been - 10th September It's over – masculinity of the old school - I grow old, I grow old...I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. And my trousers are not the half of it - 3rd September Even the worst jobs have their benefits - In an essay in praise of idleness, that cadaverous philosopher Bertrand Russell argued "that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work" - 27th August Foolish vanity of a public intellectual - Starkey’s arrogance was his undoing - 20th August These have been a disgusting few years - That form of looting known as corporate larceny continues to rage unchecked - 13th August The best fiction doesn't need a label - The truth is, the best novels will always defy category - 6th August The further north, the smarter you are - Up north we believe very little that we’re told. Hence the size of our brains - 30th July Brought low by those who think ill of us - Since when was sexual circumspection proof of a generous or capacious mind? - 23rd July Pick up a book – and be ready to fight - Great writers stake out a battlefield you can’t simply slink away from - 2nd July Singing is the problem, not the drinking - Someone who can’t find anything better to do than admire and copy a rock star is a lost soul already - 25th June What I want from a city is its sexual aura - Barcelona men gripped their women’s necks as they strolled on the Ramblas in an act of erotic possessiveness - 19th June Struck dumb by women's stuff - It has been a week for a man of my sort to stay silent - 11th June What Nazis failed to grasp about dogs - My father's dog Ricky once chewed up my only copy of Mein Kampf and buried the introduction in the back garden - 4th June Critics who need to examine themselves - It's not Philip Roth's fault if you can't grasp his genius - 28th May What fresh hell is this? A journey by train - You'd rather be kidnapped and bundled into the boot of a car than go Virgin - 14th May Here's what stops us being Bin Laden - First the nuptials, then the killing. Don't tell me it was just coincidence - 7th May Always room for a little vulgarity - Part of Dickens’s greatness was that he reached strenuous and non-strenuous readers alike - 30th April Ludicrous, brainwashed prejudice - You can’t expect Ofcom to adjudicate between claims of dramatic truth and truth of any other sort - 23rd April A test too far even for a Rabelaisian - And then the home test kit from the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme turns up in the post - 9th April DH Lawrence, forever misunderstood - BBC4’s dramatisation of ‘Women in Love’ passes the greatest test. Which is more than can be said for its critics - 2nd April Jews on Coronation Street? No thanks - There’s nothing to stop them having a bunch of Hassidim propping up the barat the Rovers Return - 26th March A land whose writers understand fortitude - Mishima lowers himself into the terribleness of beauty - 19th March My quest for a coat, destination unknown - It's become compulsive now. If I see a coat I like approaching, I move in close - 12th March If you look hard enough Zion is all around - What we now see is how opportunistic Arab anti-Zionism has been - 5th March Save us from the opinions of the young - Bliss is it in this dawn to be alive, but to be young is very heaven - 26th February Too wired to have a relaxing holiday - Outside, the waves broke; inside, two adults, tired from travel, hammered at dead computer keys - 19th February A love-hate affair with the ordinary bloke - We can be prejudiced and aware of limits: we can be pigs and still see that we have gone too far - 29th January Our dark side is closer than we think - Exhilaration can turn to ashes in the beat of a heart - 22nd January Remorse is for sin time cannot wipe - 'Will these hands ne'er be clean?' cries Lady Macbeth in horror. And the terrible answer is no - 15th January Need for self-contempt to love darts - Lose at darts and you compound ingloriousness with disgrace - 8th January Hiss them one day and boo them the next - It used to take a while for a hero to become a villain or vice versa - 1st January

Articles: 2010 You'll never catch me going on a march - The moment people throw billiard balls at police, their argument is invalidated - 11th December It's better you don't know my secrets - Apparently Wikileaks is responsible for leaking 251,287 US embassy secrets - 4th December 2010 Once the Ashes starts, I go to pieces - The first ball is bowled and my heart is dancing, but not for joy, not joy - 27th November Why I'm damned if I'll bleed a radiator - A poll has been conducted in which men who want a quiet life admit to not being able to bleed a radiator - 20th November Happiness can inspire great art - The cliché has it that happiness gives the writer little to work with - 13th November Why worry is the least of my concerns - If the terror threat is lowered, that’s because we’ve lowered it. Worry is part of our genetic inheritance - 6th November What about your dignity, Ann? - This coming week, if rumours are to be believed, she will be led into Strictly on a horse. Lady Godiva? We shall see - 30th October In Rooney I see Coriolanus, engine of war - Rooney looks like a man who doesn't know what his grievances are because he has lost the point of himself - 23rd October My Booker week - I owed it to Uncle Gerry to rejoice in the thing itself. And hope for nothing further - 16th October We don't discuss prizes in this column. We try to stay above the fray - His relationship with the Man Booker has not always been so cordial, as this Independent article from 2005 reveals... - 14th October The end of the pier is too big a loss to bear - A pier never feels entirely English. Isn’t that what we love – its foreignness? - 9th October Milibands have gone against nature - Ed might be just what the country needs. But the country isn’t everything - 2nd October Lost and alone amid the rubble - Atheist, me? I can think of a few atheists who'd have words to say about that - 11th September The English sound of Hindu bagpipes - This music reflected the spirituality of India via the emotionalism of Scotland - 4th September Conspiracy theorists lack imagination - So what is it with those who see a conspiracy in the fall of every sparrow? - 28th August Rage, rage against educational defeatism - 'Edexcel' is itself a barbarism to anyone for whom language has dignity - 21st August It's that time of the year again, again - The return of football is even crueller this year, because it never went away - 14th August Don't use Wagner to test your marriage - My wife is motionless in her seat, barely breathing. It’s at this point that I believe she has begun to judge me as an artist - 7th August I loved him for the calm he exuded - My wife's uncle died. Her only uncle, which made him special, though he was important to us in other ways too - 31st July People want retribution, not rehabilitation - We no sooner let offenders out than they offend again. I propose a simple solution: keep them in - 24th July Winners and losers in the game of stupidity - Now that the World Cup is over, here's a little quiz to keep your competitive juices flowing until the next test or tournament comes along - 17th July Choose life. Choose a job. Choose the future - You descend into old age wondering what your life might have been - 10th July Beaches and books don't go together - Will somebody please explain to me what 'Holiday Reading' is? I'm not asking for recommendations - 3rd July The Fawlty Towers experience lives on - It confirmed my belief that every hotel in England was a Fawlty Towers at heart - 26th June Where's the culture in our football? - I make this prophetic pronouncement with great sadness. We are not going to win the World Cup - 19th June Seeming is not always believing - Reflections - 12th June Austerity doesn't hurt if the sun is out - If you have to say the party’s over, you don’t want to be doing it in winter - 29th May Some human rights are plain wrong - The culture of the inviolability of the individual has found a congenial resting place in our schools - 22nd May Here's why the 'elite' are in charge - They have power because there aren’t enough people educationally equipped to seize it from them - 15th May Three days of sorrow and joy – of a sort - I voted not to put A in but to keep B out. Was this why men risked their lives? - 8th May A morality play for these muddled times - 'Bigotblundergate' I've called it. It's a one-act tragical-farcical two-hander - 1st May A one-eyed giant nearly stopped me getting home - Having a column to write, I went in search of other Englishmen as anxious to escape as I was - 24th April Pupil power has left teachers humiliated - Teaching has been turned upside down. Ignorance is the arbiter of knowledge - 10th April Now Israel is being treated like a grown-up - Anti-Zionism of the sort that peppers letters pages has much to answer for - 3rd April The pillars of our civilisation tumble - Money was a temptation for New Labour. What else did the ‘New’ stand for? - 27th March The salty tale of the Cornish fishermen - Boscastle had three pubs for its 800 souls, with singing in every one - 20th March We could learn about TV from the US - It seemed dire at first. I would channel hop and get only ads, interminable ads - 13th March Come to an American university and be instantly promoted to professor - Their courteousness can get in the way of your knowing what they think - 6th March A civilised, courteous but lifeless place - Washington is given over in spirit to the tedium of archiving and administration - 27th February Proof that free enterprise doesn't work - Individualism is a fine ideal; it’s only a shame individuals suck -20th February Stranded in snowy Washington - Queues stretch into the street. It’s not just us who go to pieces in extremity - 13th February Blair may have shown bad judgement... - ...but it doesn't make him a liar - 6th February Comedians do have their uses - I wanted to express my gratitude to someone whose comic gifts I admired - 30th January We don't dare to criticise 'real people' – just those in the twittersphere - People adore, or ele they abhor - 23rd January Civil liberties or civil protection – which is the more important? - When freedom becomes ideological it invariably ends up our jailer - 16th January Life is more precious than freedom - Those who offer to act in freedom’s name should not take that name in vain - 9th January All males of 22 should be on a list. -If you're a man you don't fly before you're 30, is my proposal - 2nd January

Articles: 2009 Scenes of contentment don't materialise - I fancied one day I’d be sipping Claret while reading Tolstoy in the original - 26th December We debase relationships with 'love you' - It conceals what we truly (madly, deeply) feel, especially from ourselves - 19th December I don't believe in the joy of giving - This year i'm giving up giving. Whether anyone will notice is another matter - 12th December Let prejudice be servant to the facts, and not the other way round - I am wary of accepting someone is an ‘ardent’ Zionist on the say-so of someone who isn’t - 5th December If the Coens were going back to their Jewish roots, they must have lost their way - They are now the quintessential unfeeling geniuses of our time - 28th November Nick Griffin looks as if he'd be light on his feet... - ... So here's what to do with him - 14th November Make me laugh but don't be so smug - Self-satisfaction is unpardonable. Hence the need to keep a straight face - 31st October Our standing up for minorities is nothing if it's merely special pleading - Can we censure people for saying hateful things in language that is itself hateful? - 24th October There's only one thing a sense of humour will get you – and that's into trouble - As long as you keep making jokes you don’t have to listen to anybody else - 17th October You don't need poverty for art to thrive - ...but too much privilege could be a bad thing - 10th October There is nothing petty about this crime - This brutality is the consequence of our failure to teach mutuality and respect - 3rd October It doesn't matter if there's a recession or not, because Armageddon is on its way - It’s business as before. Only this time with a hint of maniacal defiance- 26th September Brown's day of reckoning is getting closer - Time is running out - this relaunch may be Mr Brown's last - 5th September We won the Ashes, but lost an old enemy - Ponting’s puckish Irish banter is the last cry of anti-colonial grievance - 29th August Hark the distant angels sing, plucking a tune on just four strings - We laugh at the heroic in away that would be impossible if we did not venerate it - 22nd August The pedant's duty to keep battling on - What the unlettered populace does with words today the rest of us do tomorrow - 15th August Taking tea with terrorists... - It’s the new chitti-chattiness I’m worried about. It isn't always good to talk - 8th August Obsessive hand-washing won't help - My swine flu buddy rings the helpline - they say it sounds like swine flu to them - 1st August We could all do with Johnson's chicken feed - That throwaway line is fatuous, distasteful, contemptuous and cruel - 18th July I never did see my function as supplier of the wherewithal to feed women's neuroses - The dull truth is that women like men too much to forgo them - 11th July We're in search of a new Messiah - We seem to be in need of big emotion. Joy or grief, it doesn’t matter - 4th July Seven inch high heels are not erotic - I spent my first term’s student grant on stilettos for the girl I loved - 27th June Live fast, die young – or spend your old age playing canasta with the ladies - The latest figures showing that men are 100 times more likely to die of everything than women – and at a quarter of their age, and in double the agony – are all I need - 20th June I can't forgive Sugar's appointment - In the dismal gloaming, he fantasised about prancing airily like Tony - 13th June There is nobility in opting out - I walked out of Waiting For Godot at the Theatre Royal last week - 6th June It's not the uneducated we should blame for our national philistinism - Denial of seriousness is the scandal - 30th May Italian food is wonderful eaten in England - Regional food is almost invariably peasant food and I am not a peasant - 23rd May Without a healthy dose of intelligence, sex is just a mechanical process - A bit of rough is a fantasy only in the minds of the well educated - 16th May The money men were bound to win, but Melvyn showed us how good TV can be - Our writer admires how his friend kept the South Bank Show's bean-counters at bay - 10th May A letter to an anti-Semite who isn't - You give succour to fanaticism. Yours is the sleep of reason - 9th May The power of old Austrian-Slavic legends - The phrase "Austrian legend of Slavic origin" makes me want to slit my wrists - 2nd May Susan Boyle shouldn't have to curry favour - Oh God, she dreamed the dream. She had to, didn't she - 25th April Ginger zingers are juicy nightmares - One point stands out: lime juice stings a cut finger beyond endurance - 11th April The scorn shown to Jacqui Smith's husband is proof of people's hypocrisy - I don’t watch blue movies. But then I’ve watched too many to be any longer curious - 4th April Make a final stand for humankind - Those who say we misplace the threat of terror are committing us all to suicide - 28th March Reinvention is the joy and purpose of art. - The novel proper has been losing ground to real life improper for years - 21st March What do you do if you've got too much time on your hands? Start a fight - The boredom of existence explains our going astray in nine cases out of 10 - 14th March Our bankers could learn a thing or two from the Victorians – namely honour - They had the moral refinement to do away with themselves when the game was up - 7th March Respect has nothing to do with education - There is nothing new about hating a clever clogs. We always have - 28th February Go to the opera and a man with a bald head is always blocking the view - Just blown two hundred smackers staring into the back of someone’s head - 21st February Let’s see the ‘criticism’ of Israel for what it really is - The air has been charred not with devastation but with hatred - 18th February When it comes to art and the human condition, keep morality out of it - The larger your imagination the fewer feelings you don't understand - 7th February You can have too much money - Society will always be unjust. But how great can we bear the disparity to be - 31st January Get your tailoring right, and you can set out to solve the world's problems - Too much attention to exterior show a man is trivial; too little and he is a fanatic - 24th January A silly lad is not a murderous racist - The palace is still no place to acquaint a boy with the ironic locutions of the street - 17th January I didn't get Pinter – until it was too late - An observer would have picked us for master and acolyte - 10th January The Palestinians might be winning the propaganda war, but at what cost? - Israel could not have done other than it is doing, but that does not make it right - 3rd January

Articles: 2008 Cohen does Old Testament love and loss - Can you see where the singer got his taste for the eroticism of betrayal? - 27th December 2008 It's never easy buying for a man. - I don't doubt it's the question keeping you awake at night. - 20th December 2008 Careless talk costs lives - So how bad is it going to get? Don't spare me, doctor. I need to know - 13th December 2008 More terrorism, more blame games - To argue Palestine fuelled the massacre in Mumbai is preposterous - 6th December 2008 Thanks to Cohen I now see the light - It’s like a reprimand to people of my temperament. Is he be singing to me? - 29th November 2008 The lesson of Hitler's deformity - So Hitler actually did have only one ball. I call that a pity for history - 22nd November 2008 Sergeant gets the public's fickle nature - The judges came to a conclusion cynics and nihilists reached years ago - 15th November 2008 Obama's cool could become political substance - The President-elect manages to link good citizenship to street cred - 8th November 2008 Russell Brand winked at me once. And when he winks at you, you stay winked - Ross has made a little go a long way. Brand has made a lot go almost nowhere - 1st November 2008 So God 'probably' doesn't exist. Don't these atheists have any conviction? - This is a cowardly opposition to religious sentiment - 25th October 2008 We like a mirthster, but smart-arsery is not funny - Nothing is sacred but not every act of satirical disrespect is funny - 11th October 2008 Welcome to banking's own circle of hell - Make your fortune. Just don’t forget the materials out of which it came - 4th October 2008 Oh, to be a working man again – if only for the full English breakfast - 27th September 2008 So what is the legacy of the banker's greed? A cynical society – and bad art - It has become inconceivable that a person might inhabit a moral or intellectual position for its own sake - 20th September 2008 Why choose between the mind and the flesh? In Italy, you can have both - For four days, Mantova is given over to inordinately elegant women who go nowhere without a book - 13th September 2008 Once you reach a certain age, Confucius makes perfect sense - Among this philosophy's attractive elements is its insistence that respect be shown to elderly men - 6th September 2008 Cyclists are malevolent, while athletes are obsessed only with themselves - Paula Radcliffe is the most boring person in the country. When you ask her how she is, she tells you - 30th August 2008 Autumn is coming and I've got the wrong trousers. Giorgio to the rescue - 23rd August 2008 The calm comedy of Simon Gray was all the company you ever needed - 16th August 2008 (playwright Simon Gray died 6th August 2008) There's much to be said for the old ways of teaching. At least they worked - How bad is it? Five million of us are leaving school without having mastered basic literacy - 9th August 2008 Sitting on a bench in Eastbourne, where else would one want to be? - The English like to moderate life's pleasures, which is why their coastal resorts suit them so well - 2nd August 2008 We get the war criminals we deserve - Far worse than Karadzic himself are those who blindly followed him - 26th July 2008 Military service, crocheting and ping-pong – that will separate the men from the boys - The findings of the British Crime Survey were published last week. And it's good news - 19th July 2008 You can keep your good health and long life. Just give me back my pasta - Better to live a brief life without fear than live to 100 and afraid of every pea that rolls on to our plate - 12th July 2008 Stop running. Slow down. And take a good long look – you'll get far more out of art - I find nothing tiresome about standing rapt before a painting and thinking long about what we see - 5th July 2008 Watch baggage handlers at work and you too can succumb to luggage rage - I watched someone clearing bags manhandling them as if they had done him a personal injury - 28th June 2008 What makes everyone believe that they have an inalienable right to be 'worth it'? - It's possible that I feel squeamish about talent contests because I never won one - 21st June 2008 It's the end of civil liberties as we know it – or that's how some people prefer to think - What's been done to us to make us dread every new CCTV camera as we dread a nightmare? - 14th June 2008 When ordering a salt beef sandwich, beware the moral minefield that awaits - It's a contradiction of Jewish law: the more you eat kosher, the more of a pig you make yourself look - 7th June 2008 If what we watch or read can move us to compassion, it can move us to sadism too - There is an unwillingness to believe that our times are morally or intellectually inferior to any other - 31st May 2008 The first step on the road to wisdom is admitting that you don't know anything - It is beyond us to balance fairly the rights of an unborn child against those of the mother - 24th May 2008 Rebel too strongly against seriousness and what do you end up with? Boris Johnson - He reminds me of a baby. He has the same wet, pouting lip, the same incorrigible naughtiness - 17th May 2008 If there really is a smear campaign to try to silence the critics of Israel, it isn't working - Call those who disagree with you ‘witch-hunters’ often enough and they will see you as one in turn - 10th May 2008 No need to be surprised when a house of horrors turns up on a quiet provincial street - The degree to which this story fascinates us proves we know the dungeon is never far away - 3rd May 2008 I lay on my sun bed and enjoyed the most perfect reading experience you can imagine - It's so hot out there that if I quit the shade for more than 10 seconds I will grow a melanoma - 26th April 2008 Which is more depraved: Nazi role-playing in sex games or the horrors of motor sport? - Better to have had Mr Mosley in his striped pyjamas being flogged outside my window - 5th April 2008 If you say you want a revolution, it's obvious you're sitting uncomfortably in economy - So what does that say about those of us who were not swept up by the universal hysteria of 1968? - 29th March 2008 The heart has its allegiances, to places as well as people. And a country is both - I think the recent suggestions about introducing oaths of fealty are fatuous, but then again I don't - 22nd March 2008 So much more could have been done to liberate people from the confines of class - A funny thing happens to working classes when they read – they stop being working class - 15th March 2008 Many are the ways we might feel frightened, embarrassed – or just not at home - Study is meant to make you feel at sea. The self is not a precious entity to be soothed at every turn - 8th March 2008 If you think that Prozac works, then it doesn't really matter what the experts say - What scientists never understand is that human beings aren't governed by science - 1st March 2008 Why mock the expectation of beauty in art? It is laudable that we want to be impressed - 23rd February 2008 Our woefully uncultured leaders no longer have any idea what schools should be doing - Mental torture I call it, making a man use a word like 'creative' when he doesn’t know what it means - 16th February 2008 You won't find young people complaining about CCTV – they love being on camera - As we're free, the thing we dread is not invasion of our privacy but its opposite – obscurity - 9th February 2008 I don't believe that if Eton was closed down then every school beneath it would improve - Does the fault lie in the social attitudes of those who administer and teach at comprehensives? - 2nd February 2008 I go and see a film and can't understand what anyone's saying. And I don't think I am alone - I date the demise of verbal communication to our our rejection of Received Pronunciation - 26th January 2008 It's not done to say it, but a book that's 'a good read' is seldom worth reading - 19th January 2008 Few human beings can resist the sight of a woman's tears – crocodile or otherwise - Hillary knows what works, and anyone who mistrusts such calculation is too naive to be allowed to vote - 12th January 2008 No wonder the public is deranged when the people paid to serve us do such a bad job - Some men take pistols into banks to get what they want. I take my voice. But only once a year - 5th January 2008

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