Olivia Glazebrook 
ITV’s Food Glorious Food is under the curse of Simon Cowell
I sometimes worry that ITV — the middle child — doesn’t get enough of my attention and so this week I have decided to redress the balance: I devoted myself… Read more
Schoenberg in shorts
For anyone who missed The Sound and the Fury (Tuesday, BBC4) here is a reason — one of many — to catch it on your iPlayer: footage of a fierce,… Read more
Ordinary people
There was little reason to be curious about David or Jackie Siegel at the beginning of Queen of Versailles (Monday, BBC4): he is the King of Timeshare and she is… Read more
Wodehouse to the rescue
I knew this would happen: I’ve been watching season five of Mad Men on DVD and it’s spoiled me for normal telly. If you notice increased levels of toxicity —… Read more
Insomniac’s heaven
If I wake up at too rude an hour to get up — before four o’clock, let’s say — Through the Night is my reward: I switch on the radio… Read more
What the doctor ordered
I don’t know whose idea it was to put New Year at the beginning of January, but it seems like an odd one. Why not begin each new year on,… Read more
Food, glorious food
Despite a wet summer, the recent crop of food programmes has been prodigious: six episodes of Nigellissima, eight of Nigel Slater’s Dish Of The Day, six of Lorraine Pascale’s Fast,… Read more
Fame and fortune
Having planned to devote every one of this week’s 800 words to Sir David Attenborough’s 60 Years in the Wild (Friday, BBC2), I was distracted by fame, fortune and the… Read more
Time trials
It’s amazing what can be squeezed into an hour of The Hour (Wednesday, BBC2): smutty photos, gang violence, bent coppers, illegal gambling, fascism, racism, a political cover-up, a media exposé,… Read more
The American way
To the Americas this week, and first to the land of the free and the home of the brave: Gay to Straight (Monday, BBC3) examined the practice of ‘gay conversion… Read more
Falling about and apart
One of the many pleasures of television is that it allows us to forget our manners: we can treat it with an impolite offhandedness that would not be considered sociable… Read more
Acid reign
You won’t believe me when I tell you this but I swear it’s the truth: until this week, I had never watched Downton Abbey(Sunday, ITV). Some old-fashioned notion about not… Read more
That’s entertainment
Comparisons may be odious but sometimes they are irresistible — and, frankly, more fool the BBC for screening Treasures of Ancient Rome on the same night as The Shock of… Read more
Even the Dogs, by Jon McGregor
Jon McGregor’s debut, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002 and won both the Betty Trask Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award in… Read more
Please release me
I am writing this at teatime on Sunday — day nine of the Olympics. So far: 34 medals, we’ve all gone completely bananas, and the Great British mood has improved… Read more
Relaxing with the ignoble
Unless I have slept through another of the year’s once-in-a-lifetime experiences — which is rather more likely than possible — the days since the Wimbledon final have passed without call… Read more
Under pressure
Rest easy on your deckchair, Delingpole, for I come in peace. Your column is safe — from me, at least — because this week I have made an unpleasant discovery:… Read more
Golden oldies
A young Indian entrepreneur, Sonny (Dev Patel), has a brilliant idea: to open a hotel that caters for the ‘elderly and beautiful’ British tourist. He plans, in other words, to… Read more
Winter wonderland
Jack and Mabel move to Alaska to try to separate themselves from a tragedy — the loss of their only baby — that has frozen the core of their relationship.… Read more
Latest blogs
- Scottish independence: it’s still (almost) all about oil. Alex Massie
- The Tory grassroots were feeling neglected long before ‘swivel-eyed loons’ claims Isabel Hardman
- Swivel-eyed loons are a feature of British democracy Rod Liddle
- Jeremy Hunt attacks Labour for A&E crisis Isabel Hardman
- Inflation falls: but will voters notice? Isabel Hardman
- Writers in a state of fear Nick Cohen
- Will Nigel Farage and UKIP help ditch Alex Salmond? Alex Massie
