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Friday

Esther Watson

The Beckham documentary is little more than PR

Let me start by saying I didn’t watch Beckham because I am a football fan. What I’m really interested in is the art of spinning gold from thin air, something David Beckham and his family have excelled at. So I zoned out when it came to discussing the intricacies of Beckham and Sir Alex Ferguson’s relationship in the 1990s, or the pain he felt when leaving Manchester United, the only club he ever wanted to play for.  The Beckhams have carefully curated what they were willing to share, all under the guise of being candid No, I was after the behind-the-scenes access to all things Brand Beckham. What does he really

Zak Asgard

The worst open mic night of my life

A lonely microphone. A sound system that would have been impressive in the late 1990s. The smell of athlete’s foot and the contents of a Nobby’s Nuts packet. A deranged dog. Three privately educated members of a punk band call ‘SKiN FuK!’ arguing with the bartender. The stale atmosphere of regret and faded dreams mixed in with hope for a brighter tomorrow. It can only be one thing: Tuesday open mic night. ‘This is a scene I wrote a few weeks ago. It’s from the perspective of a baby being born I’ve been to more open mic nights than I’ve had pleasant dreams. They just seem to happen to me.

Thursday

Harry Mount

Women are obsessed with the Romans, too

Infamy! Infamy! That was my response to the TikTok trend about ancient Rome. Women asked their partners how often they thought about the Roman Empire. Many men admitted they thought about it every day; three times a day, said one. One confessed he was obsessed with ‘aqueducts and the fact that they had concrete that could harden’. The scoundrels who came up with the idea should have asked women. Because they, too, are obsessed with ancient Rome. ‘I’ll be at a picnic when I look at my sandwich and suddenly ask: “Did you know the Romans had sandwiches?”’ Professor Mary Beard told me: ‘I must confess that I probably think

Jenny McCartney Jenny McCartney

An ode to the BlackBerry

The demise of tech plays out first as disorientation, then entertainment. We’ve reached the latter stage with the BlackBerry, the now-defunct Canadian harbinger of global smartphone addiction. A new film out this month charts its spectacular rise and fall: young folk, look up from your iPhones, and learn how in its Noughties heyday, the BlackBerry was beloved by Obama, Beyoncé and Madonna. With its seductively clicky Qwerty keyboard, it came to control 45 per cent of the mobile phone market. Then it plummeted to today’s share, zero. BlackBerry the movie had a particular poignancy for me, because I hung on to my final BlackBerry phone, the KeyOne, until well past

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Hell is a heat pump

‘So, as Rishi Sunak has announced that we’re now allowed to keep installing new gas boilers till 2035, and they last about 15 years, that means I’ll be able to keep a gas boiler till 2050, so I might even be allowed to die with a gas boiler still going in my house, and may never have to switch to an ugly, expensive air-source heat pump which makes an annoying fridge-like hum in the garden, vibrates through the bedroom wall and keeps the house at a weird, lukewarm temperature all day and night.’ I think many of us were making that kind of calculation last month. Were we tempted by

Wednesday

Robin Ashenden

I’ve given up on my dreams… apart from the sports car

They say that, against all expectations, after the age of about 50 you actually get happier, and that much of this happiness is tied in with the merciful death of your dreams. Once over the hill – and I can vouch for this – you feel unrealistic visions that have guided you your whole life simply exit the stage, albeit with a few well-aimed parting kicks. You don’t lament their passing – young people may want an emotional switchback, but in maturity (well, relative maturity) you’ll happily (well, relatively happily) swap it for solid ground under your feet and a little stability of mind. Hope, thankfully, doesn’t always spring eternal. After your

Paul Burke

I hated counsellor training

In practically every respect, I’m a useless human being. This is not the vanity of false modesty – I really am worse than most people at most things. I’ve never picked up a musical instrument, a golf club or a foreign language; I can barely boil an egg and would find it almost impossible to paint a wall without stepping back and kicking two and a half litres of emulsion all over the carpet. The course was not for me or anyone remotely like me. In fact, it was all a bit public sector Yet I thought, in terms of life experience, that I’d make quite a good counsellor. I was