Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator
These online crypto-currencies have made the financial world more fun. It’s all so gloriously bonkers. First there was Bitcoin, the ‘peer-to-peer’ online payment system founded in 2009. Almost nobody understood how it worked or what a Bitcoin actually was — something to do with chains of code, computer ‘mining’, and a ledger system — but
Poor David Moyes, sacked before the season ends. Living up to the standards set by Sir Alex Ferguson was always an impossible task, especially since Fergie left Manchester United in a shoddy state. Moyes inherited a squad stuffed with arrogant past-its like Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Young. It’s testament to Ferguson’s terrifying force of personality
How do you solve a problem like revenge porn? It’s a strange new social evil. More and more men are getting back at women who dump them by posting sex videos and/or photos of them online, along with their name and contact details for all to see. It’s not just a nasty man thing, either
Has anything ever been more luvvie than this?
The digital-age male is a pathetic creature. Shorn of all his old manly attributes, he has to puff himself up. He does this, as Clive Martin on Vice magazine pointed out recently, by ingesting large amounts creatine, lifting weights, thinking about his clothes (sorry, look), and calling everyone a legend, because if everyone is a
Politicians like to insinuate that they have a ‘cultural hinterland’ — a range of interesting interests beyond Westminster. Take Stella Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow, who describes herself as an ‘Indie Kid’. This morning she read a Telegraph post by Peter Oborne about modern politicians being too inexperienced and dull. ‘Think of Healey; Crossman; Crosland;
What does it mean these days to beat the bookie? Many of us like to imagine that winning a bet still involves trumping some wizened geezer and his chalkboard. In most cases, however, today’s successful punter has had to get the better of a mega computer. Gambling markets, like financial ones, now run on Automated
Cheers today from the Tory ranks for the Chancellor’s decision to raise taxes on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals to 25 per cent. Nobody in the political and media elite likes these digital-age one-arm bandits, as I wrote in the magazine last month, because they exploit ‘the most vulnerable’ in society and because they have effectively
Yesterday I took part in an interesting discussion at The Catholic Herald’s offices on the subject of Pope Francis’s first year. The question was, as it seemed to be for the BBC this morning, whether his ‘revolution’ has been one of substance or style. The answer, I reckon, is a bit of both – and
Have you seen Barack Obama’s appearance on the satirical interview show Between Two Ferns? What did you think? According to some pundits, it is amazingly funny. Obama is the ‘best Between Two Ferns guest ever’, says Oliver Franklin at GQ. I must be missing something, because I found it painful and somewhat depressing. There a
It’s hard not be cynical about these TV presenters on Russia Today making such bold on-air declarations against their network. The eye-catching Liz Wahl sensationally quit RT yesterday saying she would no longer work for a channel that ‘whitewashes’ President Putin’s actions (see video above), and she is being widely lauded. ‘I’m proud to be an
First published in 2014, this bluffer’s guide may still help you feel like Chatham House’s finest at your next dinner party… We’re all journalists now, apparently, so when a major foreign policy crisis comes along it is important to be prepared. Everyone must learn the art of winging it as the big news breaks. That’s not
Call me a fruitcake, but I am all for Islamic censorship when it comes to Katy Perry. In the last few days, there’s been a terrible fuss about Perry’s latest song, ‘Dark Horse’, because the video for it features an Arabic man wearing an ‘Allah’ pendant, who is burned alive. A bunch of angry Muslims,
I wrote a piece about the Fixed Odds Betting Terminals uproar in the magazine this week, and it has prompted some angry responses by email and over social media. I’m told that I didn’t treat problem gambling with sufficient seriousness. I’m not sorry about that, I’m afraid: I think it’s silly to be too serious about the vices of others.
Hands up: who knows what a FOBT is? It stands for fixed odds betting terminal. No? Well, you should, because they are a serious menace to society. That’s what Ed Miliband says, anyway. FOBTs, you see, are those souped-up slot machines one can find in bookmakers’ shops all over the country, especially in deprived areas,
Now look, as Tony Blair would say, homophobia is bad. Very bad. But does that mean we have to turn the Sochi Winter Olympics into a sort of global gay pride event, simply because Russia has passed a not very pleasant law against teaching children about homosexuality? Apparently it does. Every right-thinking hack on earth, it
One of the many things I love about my wife is that she doesn’t make me do anything for Valentine’s Day. Bloody Valentine’s. It brings nothing but resentment and misery. It makes single people feel left out and lonely and turns happy couples against each other. True, some women might feel a little gratified if
Boy oh boy do I feel sorry for Laurie Penny. I hope that’s not a sexist thing to say. There she is, doing what she does, churning out perfectly harmless po-mo guff for the New Statesman about ‘why the patriarchy fears scissors‘ because ‘short hair is a political statement’ — and people seem to hate her for it, as
François Hollande seems like the European Left’s answer to George W. Bush, a disaster-prone buffoon who somehow makes it to the top and then wrecks his country. The comparison doesn’t quite work, however: Bush II, for all his flaws, had charm, some good fortune, and some political skill: he was re-elected, remember. Francois Hollande seems
It seems that everyone agrees Pope Francis should be Time’s ‘Person of the Year 2013’. Better him than Miley Cyrus, at any rate, or Bashar al-Assad, and Francis deserves it, too. This year he has — forgive the media-speak — changed the narrative about Christianity in the liberal world. He’s spreading the Good News, not
