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 Tuesday 16th March 2010
David Schwimmer sensibly decides to marry a nice English girl
I speak from a position of experience. As someone who spent a year at an Ivy League university in my early 20s and five years in New York during my early 30s, I am a battle-harded veteran of the American dating scene and have the emotional scars to prove it. Indeed, I probably would have stayed in New York and eventually ended up with an American if I hadn't fallen in love with a nice English girl who was living in the apartment next door. Like Dave Schwimmer, I knew a good thing when I saw it and returned to Britain to marry her and start a family. (To read more, click here.)
Sunday 14th March 2010
Live blog of 'Trevor McDonald Meets David Cameron'This was obviously a very carefully managed profile in which Dave and his team pulled out every stop to make him seem human and "normal". But the elephant in the room was Dave's social provenance, his membership of a class that has been largely excluded from participation in national politics since Alec Douglas Home was kicked out in 1964. Everything about Dave's life, from the artwork hanging on the wall of his Notting Hill sitting room, to his obvious discomfort when talking about anything he's expected to be emotional about, screams "upper middle class". Whenever journalists like me raise this issue we're always accused of being "chippy" on account of the fact that we didn't go to Eton -- and I'm sure there's a lot of truth in that. Until now, Dave's poshness has largely remained below the radar; he's skilfully managed to prevent it from becoming a hot-button issue in the campaign. Journalists are obsessed with his privileged background, but the public, God bless ’em, don't see too bothered about the fact that he was a member of the Bullingdon or sounds like Prince Charles's slightly more worldly younger brother. (To read more, click here.)
Friday 12th March 2010
Is Sam Cam the world's most reluctant political wife?That David Cameron's a lucky man. Apparently, his formidable wife, who has hitherto shown very little interest in the electoral fortunes of the Conservative Party, woke up a couple of days ago and announced she's four-square behind him and wants to do anything she can to help. "She said to me the other day when we were having breakfast 'I know I work hard and I have my own business, but I want you to do this, I want you to win. I'm right behind you. Tell me what I can do to help. I want to get out there'," he told Alan Titchmarsh on his ITV1 chat show on Wednesday. (To read more, click here.)
Thursday 11th March 2010
Police should stop harassing the middle classIt comes as no surprise to discover the police are failing to tackle anti-social behaviour. According to a new report by Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, the police's response to reports of harassment, vandalism and verbal abuse is "inadequate". The conventional wisdom used to be that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. These days, any conservative who has been mugged or burgled, and who's reported it to the police in the hope that they'll follow up, has become a raving liberal, so great is his or her loss of faith in the forces of law and order. (To read more, click here.)
Wednesday 10th March 2010
Is Sarkozy's "affair" a damage-limitation exercise?The news that Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni are both having affairs strikes me as a little implausible. Don't get me wrong. I can quite believe that Mrs Sarkozy is romantically involved with Benjamin Biolay, a musician six years her junior. It's the complimentary affair, between Mr Sarkozy and Chantal Jouanno, his 40-year-old ecology minister, I'm sceptical about. It seems like a clever bit of spin control, a damage-limitation exercise dreamt up the French President's PR man. Sarkozy knew the story of his wife's affair was about to break, so, on the advice of his PR man, he invented the fact that he's having an affair as well in order to save face. In the eyes of the French electorate, Sarkozy the Swordsman cuts a more appealing figure than Sarkozy the Cuckold. Poor Ms Jouanno has been ordered to take a bullet for him. (To read more, click here.)
Tuesday 9th March 2010
Five nil to the Arsenal I can believe, but Nicklas Bendtner scoring a hat-trick? Shurely shome mishtakeAs an Arsenal supporter, I was cock-a-hoop to see the team win a 5-0 victory against FC Porto tonight, securing a place in the last eight of the Champions League. I'm not at all confident that Arsenal can beat Manchester United and Chelsea to end the season at the top of the Premier League, but on this sort of form I'm more hopeful about the Champions League. But it is as a believer in miracles that I found tonight's result particularly heartening. Like many Arsenal fans, I had given up on Danish striker Nicklas Bendtner. His performance in the match against Burnley on Saturday was all-too-typical, missing chance after chance after chance. He has become a joke on the terraces, a talisman of Arsenal's inability to press home their advantage. His puppy-like confidence in the face of an appalling couple of seasons, his enduring belief in his own scoring ability in spite of all evidence to the contrary, has made me want to shove his bright pink football boots down his neck. (To read more, click here.)
Tuesday 9th March 2010
Why I want to start a new school
Okay, it’s a bit pathetic. But I need something to keep me going. I’m currently leading the efforts of a group of parents and teachers in Acton to set up Britain’s first “free school” and it’s a Herculean task. We have to find a site, devise a curriculum, recruit the staff and persuade the government to pay for the whole kit and kaboodle. I recently met with Jonathan Fingerhut, the leader of a parent group that has succeeded in setting up a voluntary-aided school in Barnett, hoping for some encouragement, but he was plainspoken to a fault. “To be honest, if I’d known at the beginning of this process what I know now, I would never have taken it on,” he said. (To read more, click here.)
Monday 8th March 2010
Does Cameron make a convincing leading man? My "Hollywood" take on the general election campaignHaving stayed up to watch the Oscars last night, I've been thinking about the general election campaign from a Hollywood perspective. Could the reason for Labour's unexpected surge in the opinion polls be due to the fact that Gordon Brown is a more compelling character than David Cameron? Imagine, for a second, that this election campaign is a Hollywood movie. The first question is what genre does it fall into? Answer: a sports movie. A typical sports movie documents a David-and-Goliath battle between two teams -- or two individual sportsmen -- over the course of a single season. There is the dominant team or sportsman -- the clear favourite -- and the plucky little underdog whom no one expects to win. (To read more, click here.)
Sunday 7th March 2010
Oscars live blog
Saturday 6th March 2010
The Vanity Fair Oscar partyYou can tell it's Oscar season at Vanity Fair's offices because you begin to overhear members of staff having the following telephone conversation as you wander down the main corridor: "Who? Oh my God! How the hell are you? I haven't heard from you in, like, 10 years, man." Pause. "Gee, I'd love to help but there's really nothing I can do. I'm not even invited myself. Sorry." Click. Dial tone. (To read more, click here.)
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