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Friday

Julie Bindel

Who picks up the tab?

I tend to steer clear of large group meals but the last time I went there was a very awkward moment. When the bill arrived, I saw two individuals tapping away on a calculator app before announcing the exact amount of money they were prepared to put on the table. ‘I didn’t have a starter,’ chimed one. ‘I only had one cocktail,’ said the other tightwad. When the bill came it was divided equally – except that the couple counted themselves as one person We were at an inexpensive Mexican restaurant, with two cocktails for the price of one, yet this pair insisted on working out to the last penny

Wednesday

Linden Kemkaran

The rise of the village vigilante

Living off the beaten track was idyllic until one night last November. At 1 a.m. during a particularly heavy downpour, a group of hooded men came onto our property and tried to burgle us. Lulled into a false sense of security after three months in our rural home, we’d casually left our 25-year-old Land Rover Defender next to our barn, rather than locked away inside as it would normally have been.  What if the crims refuse to leave and want a fight? What if one of them gets fatally injured on my property? What if I get banged up like Tony Martin? The thieves had come prepared. Two of them scaled

Ben Sixsmith

In defence of energy drinks

With Britain so sluggish, Keir Starmer and the Labour party should want to reenergise the country. Indeed, they are preoccupied with energy, and not just the dire state of the British electrical grid but energy drinks. Labour is set to propose a ban on the sale of energy drinks to under-16s. Most British supermarkets have already introduced voluntary bans but this would make them comprehensive and legally binding. Our governing class doubtless sees energy drinks as being rather coarse compared to coffee There’s an irony here. Labour wants to extend the right to vote to 16-year-olds. At the age of 16, in other words, Keir Starmer thinks you are mature

Alec Marsh

The timeless appeal of Clacton Pier

You approach the pier at Clacton-on-Sea by passing under an elegant bridge, one which in Venice you would probably stop to admire. But this is Essex and the stonework is emblazoned with the town’s coat of arms and motto, Lux, salubritas et felicitas – light, health and happiness. Here you can admire the turning blades of the 172-megawatt Gunfleet wind turbine array or the grey masses of distant container ships Those familiar with this East Coast town will know that these qualities are in pretty short supply here – the constituency in which Nigel Farage hopes to be elected the next MP. Indeed, if George Orwell were chronicling Britain’s social

Tuesday

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Avoid the Maldives

On reading that the Maldives are to ban Israeli passport holders from entry as an alleged protest over the war in Gaza, I hooted with laughter. That dump – I wouldn’t go there if you paid me, – which is exactly what happened in 1995, when the Sunday Times sent me abroad for the very first time. I was 35, and due to a combination of being very keen on London, where I lived, and not wanting to have extra sex with my first and second husbands (which I’d heard was probable when one went en vacances) I’d never missed visiting the rest of the world. If I wanted to

Jane Robins

Baby Reindeer has become meta entertainment

Fiona Harvey appears to be having the time of her life. She’s the ‘real Martha’ in the Netflix hit, Baby Reindeer, where she’s depicted as a convicted stalker with a rage problem. Denying almost everything, Harvey is suing Netflix for libel on a global scale, hoping to secure a tidy £133 million. Since the show aired, her story has become almost as sensational as the drama itself – it’s all over social media and is now playing out with particular ghoulishness and high-drama on YouTube. The accusations in the megabucks California lawsuit against Netflix include defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and gross negligence Every day more videos appear analysing

Rhys Laverty

Parents, trust me, your kids are better off without television

Last year, we got rid of our television. Pretty much, anyway: it lives in the attic of our increasingly cramped two-bedroom maisonette. The TV only comes down for mummy and daddy’s Friday night date nights and for occasional family film time. Any time gained by putting the television on was almost invariably lost (and then some) by arguing about switching it off With three kids under five, we did not come to this momentous bit of Ludditery lightly. However, our three kids had never really had that much screen time anyway: YouTube, tablets, and phones are verboten, and we have never opened the entertainment sluice gate by just ‘sticking the