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Friday

Penworthy

Three big priced bets for the summer

This weekend’s racing does not get me excited from a betting point of view so instead I am going to put up three ante-post bets at big odds. These horses should give those who follow my tips an interest, hopefully even a profit, at some of the bigger meetings over the coming month. I can’t resist a big-field handicap on Ascot’s long straight course so the International, run a week tomorrow over seven furlongs, is just my cup of tea. There could be some value about because I rate the favourite, More Thunder, and another fancied runner, Skukuza, as doubtful runners. The most likely winner of this race in my

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Trump’s right, there’s power in positive non-thinking

Though I’m no fan of Donald Trump, time and again I’m delighted by the alternately crazy and sane things he says, and the way he knows the difference; he’s the antithesis of our politicians, who say crazy things they sincerely believe are sane. This week he spoke to the BBC’s Gary O’Donoghue, who asked him about the Pennsylvania assassination attempt. As the BBC reported: When asked if the assassination attempt had changed him, the president conveyed a hint of vulnerability as he said he tries to think about it as little as he can. ‘I don’t like dwelling on it because if I did, it would be, you know, might

Alexander Larman

Captain Britain was an embarrassing superhero

The news that the latest Superman picture has been an enormous hit in the United States, but has been received rather more tepidly here, has been taken in many quarters to mean that there is an anti-American mood at large. Maybe this is dictated by America’s choice of president and administration, which means other countries are no longer as enamoured of that quintessentially all-American superhero. Alternatively, it could of course mean, as this magazine’s critic Deborah Ross has suggested, that the film simply isn’t very good and that we should all stick to the 1978 Christopher Reeve picture instead. Whatever the reason, the USA is Superhero Central, and no other

Wednesday

James Innes-Smith

Who does Stewart Lee think he is?

Is Stewart Lee a comedy genius or just another smug leftie comic? The country’s 41st-best stand-up, as he likes to remind us in reference to a Channel 4 poll, has built up so many protective layers that he is almost beyond criticism – which I imagine suits him just fine. As if to prove the point, he’s posted dozens of negative reviews on his website, presumably to get one over on his more unenlightened critics: ‘See, not even your wrongheaded opinions affect me.’ He’s even included a quote from our own James Delingpole, writing in the Daily Telegraph, who describes Lee as ‘not funny and has nothing to say’. So

Sean Thomas

Are we the new hillbillies?

Have you ever heard of Duddies’ Branch? Chances are, you haven’t – because, firstly, its brief moment of fame came many years ago and, secondly, Duddies’ Branch does not actually exist. To explain: ‘Duddies’ Branch’ is the politely fake name given by an American anthropologist, Rena Gazaway, to a real and isolated settlement in a hollow of the Appalachian mountains (almost certainly in Kentucky). Herself born into ‘hillbilly’ culture, Gazaway spent many months of the 1960s living with the people of Duddies’ Branch. She later published her findings in a shocking 1969 book called The Longest Mile. What Gazaway encountered in that lost wooded ‘holler’ reads like dystopian fiction, even