December 2011
2011: the year of journalism scandals and my own...
It was 4.45pm on a Monday afternoon in June and I was desperately ringing up ATM engineers trying to get them to verify something it was becoming obvious was totally untrue. My palms were sweaty and hold music was making me more panicky than usual.
2011 was the year of journalism scandals and June 20th was the day I found myself in the middle of my own minor controversy. It wasn’t going to land...
David Bowie, a drunken Scotsman and New Year’s...
NEW YEAR’S EVE (1998/1999)
I’m staring at the old Nokia I inherited from my mum, the kind that was so strong it could survive being thrown at a wall and, possibly, the onset of all-out nuclear war. It has no signal and barely any battery. The rest of our group have sensibly disappeared home. Me and John, my best friend, are stood in Norwich city centre in the middle of a storm like the...
5 tags
Die Hard 101: life lessons I have learned from...
While I attempt to formulate my New Year’s resolutions, here are the five life lessons I divined by carefully studying the Die Hard franchise…
1. RELATIONSHIPS ARE HARD
”Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs…”
What did John McClane get for his wife in 1988? He saved her from a gang of heavily armed international terrorists. Being asked to attend your spouse’s...
In despair at…The Guardian’s Jedward editorial
We’re in that trough between Christmas and New Year when newspaper editorial teams wish desperately for the traditional celebrity death to fill pages. With Prince Philip stubbornly holding on and not much more to be made of his non-death in Norfolk, editors are resorting to desperate measures.
The Telegraph’s tale of a lady finding Jesus in a sock is an impressive piece of fluff and one of the...
Presenting David Cameron in Goodnight Sweetheart
It was an unpleasant coincidence that on the day Christopher Hitchens died, David Cameron gave a speech heralding Britain as Christian nation, placing religion at the heart of nation life. Like so many Conservative politicians before him, the Prime Minister makes speeches about a nation he wishes existed and not the one he governs. For all the affectations of modernity – his purported love of pop...
A brief history of not being Irish
I remember when all I knew about Ireland was that leprechauns and a shadow called Gerry Adams that could throw its voice came from there. In fairness I was 6 at the time. Years later, I met the guy who did your man Gerry’s voice on British TV during the late-80s and early-90s. He claimed his income dropped by 60% when the ban was lifted. He later went on to star in Emmerdale, so it’s fair to say...
Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me (Smiths...
Reduced To Clear 5: Kicking The Bucket List
My late night to-do lists are always grandiose: “Tomorrow, I will get a new job, create some form of renewable energy source and change the life of a sweet Victorian orphan during a time travelling adventure.” Inevitably they’re scaled back by the morning: “I’ll drink that can of Diet Coke, tweet some vaguely humorous remark about a news story and apply for jobs with occasional breaks to stare out...
Hitchens unpicking maxims about death is arresting
I am attracted to the German etymology of the word “stark,” and its relative used by Nietzsche,stärker, which means “stronger.” In Yiddish, to call someone a shtarker is to credit him with being a militant, a tough guy, a hard worker. So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this...
6 tags
Reduced To Clear 4: I’m Dreaming Of A White...
There are many things it is inadvisable to confess on Twitter – murders, an admiration for Nick Clegg, that time you picked a carton of takeaway rice out of the bin while hungover – but today I discovered another. Do not, under any circumstances, confess to even vaguely liking Love Actually. Bad things will happen.
I was spurred to mention the most saccharine of Richard Curtis confections by a...
4 tags
Reduced To Clear 3: Putting The Ire Into Ireland
Ireland has just had a two day budget. It was an inevitably dispiriting experience like watching the X Factor final but with the added horror of knowing that everybody loses. There wasn’t even an appearance by Louis Walsh comparing Enda Kenny to a young Rick Astley to lighten the mood. No one gets to enjoy the hail of sparks and cloud of dry ice that greets the crowning of an X Factor winner...
Reduced To Clear 2: Exposing Myself For Money
I don’t know much about economics but I may have a solution to the euro crisis. Ditch the ailing currency and replace it with one that’s already heavily in use wherever desperate writers congregate – exposure. I get so many offers of exposure in return for writing that I am already a paper exposure millionaire.
Please advise how much exposure I need to rack up before I can exchange it for a loaf...
Reduced To Clear part 1: best laid plans
Alright, here’s the deal: I need to make some money. I cannot sell a kidney as the universe decrees that should I find a backstreet kidney dealer* willing to take one, the second would probably pack up through loneliness and solidarity.
I can’t sell my body as a) few people would find it an appealing product b) the market for the memoirs by anxious, pale male prostitutes is not nearly as buoyant...