Society

When you have a surname like Colman you might think it would be best to avoid appearing in an advertising campaign playing a latex-wearing, greedy fossil fuel executive who puts her own wealth above the good of the planet. The name Colman first appeared in England in the 12th century, denoting someone who made their living gathering coal or burning charcoal. But perhaps that irony was lost on actress Olivia Colman when she agreed to front a campaign by a pressure group called Make My Money Matter, which appeals to investors to write to their pension fund managers demanding that they divest from fossil fuels. The group claims that £88 billion

Imagine having to be reminded not to be racist. Imagine if officialdom itself felt it necessary to whisper in your ear: ‘Lay off the racial hatred, yeah?’ That’s the mortifying fate that befell ‘pro-Palestine’ marchers on their latest big demo in London yesterday: the Metropolitan Police handed them leaflets pleading with them not to ‘incite hatred’ or express support for Hamas. The shame of it. If there was a march so morally iffy its attendees had to be reminded not to cheer a medieval terror group that recently carried out the worst act of anti-Jewish violence since the Holocaust, I simply wouldn’t go. There’s a delicious irony amid the grimness:

Who’s the worst pop star of modern times? Some might say that Adele sounds like a moose with PMT – and Sam Smith certainly has his knockers. But I’d be tempted to plump for Ed Sheeran. The 32-year-old is the most successful pop star of our time, with a voice best described as pasteurised ‘urban’ delivered with an insistent, hollow enthusiasm. Sheeran makes background music which has been inexplicably pushed to the foreground, elevator music elevated to a ludicrous degree. He has sold more than 150 million records; two of his albums are in the list of best-selling albums of all time. In 2019, he was named Artist of the Decade,