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Friday

James Innes-Smith

The tragedy of Fawlty Towers

The secret of any great sitcom is the delicate balance of sit and com. Mess the ‘sit’ bit up and you lose the ‘com’. Del Boy without Nelson Mandela House is as unthinkable as Alan Partridge without his ‘grief hole’ (aka the Linton Travel Tavern), which is why both of these characters eventually came unstuck. Sending the Grace Brothers’ employees on holiday to Costa Plonka in the 1977 Are You Being Served? feature-length comedy fell flat because, devoid of petty department store politics, the characters had no reason to exist – thus audiences felt cheated.  Remove tightly written characters from their uncomfortable surroundings and viewers stop caring. The tension between tragedy

Daniel Payne

The growing case for raising your own chickens

Eggs have become an expensive purchase recently, as you’ve no doubt noticed, with supermarket prices in the UK rising by as much as 85 per cent in the past year. Here in America, the cost of a dozen now averages out at $3.29, an improvement on the $4.25 of two months back, but still well north of the $1.50 many consumers are used to. Globally, more than 140 million chickens have been killed by avian flu and related culling since October 2021 – including 48 million across Europe and the UK. As a result, we find ourselves in one of those periodic cycles where major media outlets loudly debate the

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nicola Sturgeon quits

Nicola Sturgeon is expected to quit as First Minister of Scotland at a press conference later this morning. She has come under increasing pressure in recent weeks over the case of convicted rapist Isla Bryson, but also over her government’s handling of the NHS crisis and striking workers.  This is an unsurprising surprise: Sturgeon had not seemed confident that she would be the SNP leader by the time the next election – or de facto independence referendum as she wanted it to be. The way the Bryson case had diverted attention from the independence cause had, for the first time, left the First Minister politically weak.  This is an unsurprising

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Burt Bacharach and the end of the age of accomplishment

Hearing about the death of Burt Bacharach at the age of 94, I thought of one word: maestro. The word is variously defined as ‘a master, usually in an art’ (Merriam-Webster) or ‘a man who is very skilled at playing or conducting’ (Cambridge), but my favourite is the beautiful simplicity of the Longman definition: ‘Someone who can do something very well.’ The good (Brian Wilson: ‘He was a hero of mine and very influential on my work… he was a giant’), the bad (Billy Corgan: ‘A titan of beautiful and effortless song’) and the ugly (Mick Hucknall: ‘Farewell, genius’) of the music business spoke as one on this loss, with

Zoe Strimpel

In defence of Waitrose

I recently had a call with my accountant, a miniskirt-wearing, swashbuckling bon vivant and wine connoisseur. To soothe myself before we rang off – tax is always depressing – I brought up Waitrose, saying by way of apology for my erratic finances that most of my money went in the supermarket, a large branch of which is between my nearest Tube station and my flat. She hemmed knowingly down the phone. We both agreed it was a good use of funds. Life’s short – or might be. If one can, surely one ought to eat what one wants? And if that means a pair of smoked salmon, pea and lovage

Amber Athey

Rihanna’s Super Bowl show was a celebration of motherhood

Surprise! Rihanna is pregnant again. This was the big takeaway from the Grammy-winning singer’s Super Bowl half-time show on Sunday – her first solo live performance in seven years. The 34-year-old took a step back from her music career to focus on other projects such as her successful make-up and lingerie line Fenty, before giving birth to her first child in May 2022. Rihanna’s return to the spotlight was not met without criticism in America. Some Republicans condemned the NFL’s choice to have Rihanna perform due to her aggressively left-wing political views. Others took issue with the performance itself, pointing out that some of her lyrics and dance moves were

Tuesday

Esther Watson

The canning of Lilt is a disgrace

It was announced today that Lilt, the drink with the ‘totally tropical taste’, is being discontinued three years before its 50th anniversary. The drink will be rebranded as part of the ‘Fanta family’. A senior representative from Coca Cola, the parent company, has sought to ‘reassure Lilt’s loyal fanbase that absolutely nothing has changed when it comes to the iconic taste of the drink they know and love’. Well, we aren’t reassured. How can these people expect us loyal Lilt drinkers to trust them when they didn’t even have the decency to give us advanced warning of their plans and time to come to terms with this shock – and, more importantly,