You might have thought that the last thing shy people need is a book about shyness: a large part of what makes us shy is our self-preoccupation and awareness of our own shyness. No social situation is more embarrassing — too, too shy-making — than someone pointing out we are shy: as if we didn’t
Just in time for Fathers’ Day, when thousands of British men will receive cards addressed to ‘The World’s Best Dad!’, a new report from the Fatherhood Institute has come out demonstrating the statistical improbability of the claim. The average father in the UK spends only 24 minutes looking after his children for every hour their
In six months’ time, my son is due to attend an assessment day for a nursery. The details on the nursery’s website are deliberately sketchy — presumably to avoid parents coaching their children — but it seems to involve my son being observed while he plays and graded on the results of his burbling: it
I was signed off work five years ago. I had lost my job and was, unsurprisingly, feeling low; I went to see my GP, as I was having difficulty sleeping. Rather than dishing out a few sleeping pills, as I had hoped, my doctor googled the letters PHQ-9 on his computer and quickly went through
Something funny is happening in this country. Our comedians are becoming politicians and our politicians are becoming comedians — and public life is turning into an endless stream of jokes. Last week, the comedian Al Murray announced that he would be standing at the next general election in the constituency of South Thanet, the same
Americans make movies about slavery and its abolition. In the past two years we’ve seen the Oscar-winning Twelve Years a Slave, based on a 19th-century slave narrative, and Django Unchained, with Christoph Waltz as a bounty-hunter who, uniquely among bounty-hunters of the period, did not make his living from capturing fugitive slaves. Spielberg’s Lincoln was
I had always assumed that the one thing atheism had going for it was that you could have a lie-in on Sundays. For the past year, however, an atheist church has been meeting in London on Sunday mornings. Founded by two comedians, Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, the Sunday Assembly is a symptom of what
Twenty of us are gathered in the management suite of a shopping centre to learn about benchmarking grotto deliverables, exceeding customer expectations and, inevitably, Elf-and-Safety. Most are tiny teenage girls; they will be the elves. I gravitate to the only other middle-aged man. ‘Santa?’ he asks, nodding in the direction of my stomach. I nod
What has happened to butlers? They used to be the epitome of discretion and loyalty: but last week the Pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, began an 18-month prison sentence for passing documents from his employer’s desk on to a journalist. The trial of Paoletto, or ‘Little Paul’, as the Pope fondly called him, follows the
Last year, in an interview with the Today programme, the chief executive of National Grid told the show’s no doubt stunned listeners that they would have to get used to not having electricity as and when they wanted it. That here in the developed world we should be wondering whether the lights will be going
The Establishment Club reopens in Soho this week, and it is easy to see why. Peter Cook started the original club in 1961, when there was an unpopular Conservative government, led by a cabal of Old Etonians, presiding over a recession; and the Establishment Club’s Soho premises were at the centre of the satire boom
One of the rites of passage for a comedian is walking through the rain at the Edinburgh Fringe, looking down and seeing one of your own flyers being trampled underfoot. If you want a vision of the Fringe, imagine a boot stamping on a flyer of your own face — for ever. Or until the
