Julie Burchill is a writer living in Brighton. Her Substack is julieburchill.substack.com.
‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,’ wrote Allen Ginsberg in his famous poem Howl. I thought of it the other day on reading a column by the alleged ‘comedian’ Stewart Lee in the Observer: ‘Nascent neo-Nazis are looking for confirmation bias for their worst instincts, but back in the
One of the worst ways to form a good first impression of someone is when they’re chasing the same woman as you, so in the interests of total clarity I’ll divulge that the first – and only – time I met Neil Gaiman was way back in the twentieth century, at the Groucho Club, when we
What’s the greatest divide in life? Is it between the dumb and the clever, the rich and the poor, the ugly and the beautiful? All have their points, but in my opinion it’s between those who can make a living doing a thing they love and those who do a job they don’t particularly care
I’ve always liked the old Winston Churchill maxim ‘Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down’. After a month lying down in hospital, contemplating life without the use of my legs, I now utter a laugh which I hope is suitably hollow. O, my lovely legs!
In theory, I don’t care for actors – all that pontificating about climate change while taking private jets – but in practice, I find them great fun. One of my dearest friends, a small-screen siren, loves regaling me with tales of her shockers, like an American mini-series with a huge budget but an appalling script.
We’re closing 2024 by republishing our five most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 5: Julie Burchill’s article from December on Meghan and Harry. Looking back on the Queen’s 1992 ‘annus horribilis’, the events involved – though surprising at the time – seem almost staid now. The wife of her favourite son was photographed canoodling
I don’t approve of ghosts, from the sublime (I generally just mouth the words ‘Holy Ghost’ in church, as I don’t want to pledge allegiance to something I can’t help but envision looking like the traditional sheet-based model) to the ridiculous (I would charge all ‘mediums’ with fraud). If ghosts were invariably like poltergeists (the
Seeing the snaps of David Beckham, Victoria in tow, smirking like the cat that got the cream-covered canary at the King’s state banquet for the Qatari royals, I was in two minds. It pleased me to think of Meghan angrily slamming the doors of her 17 toilets, as the trophy couple the Sussexes once saw
Looking back on the Queen’s 1992 ‘annus horribilis’, the events involved – though surprising at the time – seem almost staid now. The wife of her favourite son was photographed canoodling with an American. Her daughter divorced. Her daughter-in-law was the co-creator of a frank book about the sorrows of her marriage to the Queen’s
I’m not the biggest Donald Trump fan, so I surprised myself by being pleased when he won the American election so conclusively. There was a serious reason for this. Though I’m thoroughly for abortion and against sex pests, it’s no good the Democrats pretending to be the party of women’s rights when they’re in favour
On hearing that the Groucho Club has been closed after the Metropolitan Police alleged ‘a recent serious criminal offence’, I felt a shiver of something I wasn’t quite sure of – one part sorrow, one part joy, shaken over ice-cold memories and served straight up. To some, the Groucho might have been some poncy private
It’s not just that the lunatics – sorry, ‘neuro-diverse’ – have taken over the asylum. They’ve taken over the asylum and started walking on their hands, and they’re determined to make us do the same or feel ashamed for staying the right way up. That is what I thought, anyway, when I read that children
I still remember the day when, as an adult in my twenties, I was informed by a well-wisher that Aslan from The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe was really Jesus. As this was before my religious awakening, and I was quite the militant atheist at the time, I became rather irate at this revelation.
I love hotels. Growing up, my family never stayed in them (we were poor but we were honest, M’Lud). Instead we went to Butlin’s, sharing a tiny ‘chalet’, or we stayed at bed and breakfasts; private lodgings where you got exactly those two things but had to be out and about during the daylight hours
I was a weird kid, and though I harboured the usual innocent girlish ambitions of being a drug fiend and having sex with pop stars, I also nursed a desire to appear on Woman’s Hour. As a shy, provincial virgin, the programme opened up a world of women’s troubles from anorexia to zuigerphobia – and
When we used to think of Tory marriages, we mostly thought of when they went horribly wrong – when the Honourable Member was caught with his trousers down, as when, in 1992, David Mellor was found ‘in flagrante’ with a resting ‘actress’ who saw fit to sell her story to a tabloid newspaper. The ghastly
For most people – once Brian Wilson had turned his back on the sea and started off down the lonely road to genius – surf music means either (or both) of two things: the Surfaris’ ‘Wipeout’ or Dick Dale’s ‘Misirlou’. Punchy, propulsive tunes, in other words, that make you feel like you’re on your way
Of all the grotesque modern types who cast a silly-yet-sinister shadow over the dog-days of Western civilisation – the Queers for Palestine, the Jew-baiting anti-racists, the humanity-hating eco-nuts – the Transmaid has a special step of shame very near the top. The Transmaid is a handmaid, like in Margaret Atwood’s novel, with two vital differences.
Realising that I was one of only two non-Polish women while partying with the youngsters from my local Pizza Express – my home-from-home for a decade now – I had to laugh at myself. How I love my waitress mates; Marta, Polina and Camila have become almost like family, showing up self-funded and shoutily supportive at my
Did you know that Bruce Springsteen’s son, Sam, is a fireman? Fireman Sam Springsteen. It sounds like a joke, but it’s not. Good on Sam: the child of a star, doing something useful for a living. Brooklyn Beckham-Peltz, the daddy of all nepo babies who has just launched his own brand of hot sauce, could
