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We don’t have to apologise for Friends

This weekend became The One Where We All Lost A Friend: Matthew Perry, Friends actor, addiction spokesperson and rehabilitation advocate, who died aged 54. He played the sweetly acerbic, chronically insecure Chandler Bing. Perry’s comic genius and impeccable timing meant he created a particular style of delivery and physicality that was uniquely his but endlessly imitable, epitomised by the smart-alec cadence of his immortal catchphrase, ‘Could I be any more…’ Friends, like everything, is a product of its time and should be contextualised as such Yet among the grief and love is an insidious need to caveat how supposedly ‘problematic’ Friends is: that before you acknowledge Perry’s death as a ‘tragedy’, you have to throw in

Julie Burchill

Advent calendars are becoming offensively showy

Each year in the charity shop where I volunteer, the Christmas cards arrive in August; by September, they must be on the shelves. We’re a small shop and space is precious; shoes and bags which would make us a healthy profit are swept aside for half-hearted etchings of mardy robins. But at least it’s in aid of charity, and thus in keeping with the spirit of the season – even if Christmas is still almost a third of a year away.   Even more distasteful are the bastardisations of the advent calendar available to those with terminally shallow lives and more money than sense There’s a grim humour in the way

In defence of the office romance

In the wake of Philip Schofield’s ‘unwise but not illegal’ relationship with a much younger employee, ITV have issued a new policy. It requires staff members to declare the names of their ‘associates’ and the ‘nature of their relationships’ on a Google Forms questionnaire. This is frankly a pathetic attempt to stamp out abuses of power in the workplace. And it risks killing off something I feel quite strongly about: the office romance. We must protect that at all costs.  Elon Musk discourages employees from being friendly with each other as he believes ‘comradery is dangerous’ Bores think that romantic office relationships are unprofessional. In fact, they are entirely healthy

My terrible evening on a stand-up comedy course

A few years ago, I abandoned a five-year counselling course after just 40 minutes. Apparently, I couldn’t have a refund from the community college but could transfer to another course. I may have a writer’s fascination with finding things out but I have a strange aversion to being taught. Looking at the long list of courses available to me, all I could see were things I didn’t want to be taught. Computerised Accounts and Book Keeping, Burlesque Dancing and The Art of the Burgundian Netherlands. I wasn’t looking for a hobby and there was barely anything on that list that came close to piquing my interest.  A more unprepossessing bunch of

Among the Glastonbury pagans

England is a mystical place, and its epicentre is Glastonbury, known by its pagan residents as Avalon, the mythical island of the Arthurian legend. It has sacred springs, the supposed tomb of King Arthur, the Tor and ruined tower, proximity to Stonehenge and now a thriving, sprawling community of pagans, with dozens of denominations from druid to water-witch. Once dismissible as mere woo-woo fringe, paganism has become a religious force that demands serious consideration for the simple fact that it is the fastest-growing religion in Britain. In the 2021 Census, 74,000 people in the UK referred to themselves as pagans, up from 57,000 in 2011, with a further 13,000 people calling themselves Wicca. But this

James Heale

Life behind bars: so long to Westminster’s favourite landlord

If you work in politics, chances are you have drunk in the Westminster Arms. Located just off Parliament Square, every night it hosts the collection of hacks, wonks and mandarins that comprise the SW1 bubble. For 30 years, Gerry Dolan has run the pub with his mix of Irish humour and no-nonsense determination. When we meet, three days before his retirement, his roving eyes still flick up every time to scan each new patron that enters his beloved bar. ‘I have loved the Westminster Arms. It’s been a great mistress’ he says. ‘My wife ran the wine bar downstairs, and she probably worked harder than I did. I was like

Melanie McDonagh

How to make Irish barm brack

Those of us who grew up with a traditional Halloween, that is to say, in Ireland, don’t have much truck with the contemporary version. The pumpkin-coloured, gore and chocolate fest that has come to Britain via the US is gross by comparison; we had a simple version. We dressed up, but in masks and any old clothes we could lay our hands on. We had nuts and apples for bobbing, not chocolate in the shape of severed fingers. We went from house to house looking for a penny for the bobbin’, not trick or treating. And the thing you really looked forward to was barm brack. Halloween was a time