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On Monday supermodel Naomi Campbell was pictured posing with her new baby daughter for the first time on the cover of British Vogue. Having become a mother in her 50s, she described having a child as ‘the biggest joy I could ever imagine.’ And yet it’s a ‘joy’ few members of the younger generation want to share. New statistics reveal that half of women in England and Wales are now childless by their 30th birthday. In 1971, just 18 per cent of 30-year-olds had no children – now that figure has risen to a record 50 per cent. This phenomenon is by no means unique to Britain; fertility rates are collapsing across the developed world. There are all

Brooklyn Beckham, the eldest son of David and Victoria, has launched a new television show Cookin’ with Brooklyn which allegedly took £70,000 and a team of 62 professionals to create. The result is an 8-minute episode that produced a fish-finger sandwich. Brooklyn oversees an assembly of chefs preparing the ingredients, he looks into the camera, totally deadpan and informs his audience, ‘With sandwiches you can go so many different ways. It really does help to be creative’. Is this show the epitome of everything that’s wrong with our society, as some have claimed? Brooklyn Beckham is rich. He is the amusing celebrity-child kind of rich. The sort that spends winters skiing

We’ve been warned about Aswan’s ‘little crocodiles’ – and it’s not long before they make their appearance. Gliding through the water, sleek bodies shining in the sun, they circle the felucca slowly, eyes glinting with curiosity. As only a handful of tourists currently exploring the Nile, we’re the exotic species – and potential rich pickings at that. ‘A dollar, please, a dollar, please,’ cries the ringleader, stretching out a hand from his paddleboard as another breaks into an off-key rendition of the Macarena. ‘Lovely jubbly,’ grins a third, pocketing a scrunched up note with appreciation. These are not the river’s feared reptiles, of course, which used to dominate the Nile

Last week, the nominations for the BAFTA film awards were announced and very swiftly afterwards the annual chorus of lamentation started up. For whatever poor old BAFTA does, a vocal segment of film fans and critics alike will declare themselves unhappy. BAFTAs-bashing, it can often seem, is how those in cultural circles like to keep themselves warm and entertained in the darkest and dullest months of the year. As if that weren’t enough, hot on BAFTA’s sweaty heels come the Oscar nominations, providing the opportunity to grumble on an international scale. As recently as 2020, grave accusations of ‘whitewashing’ were levelled at the British Academy, when it somehow managed to

Jimmy Carr is known as the hardest-working man in comedy. He loves making people laugh and most of all he likes making people laugh at the things they know they shouldn’t. He also loves making money and knows full well that audiences have become a lot more sensitive in recent years. That’s why he opens his Netflix show by saying: ‘Before we start, a quick trigger warning. Tonight’s show contains jokes about terrible things. Things that may have affected you and the people you love. But these are just jokes. They’re not the terrible things.’ If you continued watching after that and were offended, I’m sorry you were upset but

A suitcase landed in my garden. It seemed to have come from the sky. Soon after, two policemen urgently knocked on my door. Confused, I invited them in, they hurriedly went to retrieve the bag. Inside was a load of money, drugs and keys belonging to expensive cars. They inquired if the items were mine. ‘Certainly not,’ I said. After they’d gone, I was filled with questions. That evening the policemen returned and I was interviewed for an hour. I asked them for more information, but they were unable to tell me anything. Drug deals occur regularly on our street. They happen in a flash; a hand through a car window,

Let’s face it, rugby can be a bit confusing. No-one really understands the rules. For huge swathes of an 80-minute game, the ball disappears under a pile of bodies; scrums look like a load of fat fellas looking for a set of keys dropped in the mud and the rest of the time it’s just a giant cartoon brawl – a massive Beano-esque cloud of dust with assorted fists, feet and colloquial expletives emerging from it at various angles; after which a pint-sized ‘bloody good bloke’ kicks a penalty through some posts after an alleged offence no one understood in the first place. That’s why rugby fans are allowed to