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4 weeks ago | 
thespectator.com | Julie Burchill |James Walton |Ben Domenech |Teresa Mull
Back in the 20th century, there was a trend for beautiful female film stars to compare themselves to comical or unattractive animals. Michelle Pfeiffer insisted that she looked like a duck; Uma Thurman claimed to resemble a hammer-head shark. Not just actresses; there was a song by Pink, in which the then 23-year-old, size-six blonde babe with the snub nose and big eyes beat herself up for not being conventionally pretty like Britney Spears.
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4 weeks ago | 
thespectator.com | Julie Burchill |James Walton |Teresa Mull |Ben Domenech
Back in the 20th century, there was a trend for beautiful female film stars to compare themselves to comical or unattractive animals. Michelle Pfeiffer insisted that she looked like a duck; Uma Thurman claimed to resemble a hammer-head shark. Not just actresses; there was a song by Pink, in which the then 23-year-old, size-six blonde babe with the snub nose and big eyes beat herself up for not being conventionally pretty like Britney Spears.
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2 months ago | 
spiked-online.com | Julie Burchill |Tom Slater |Fraser Myers
Even with USAID’s financial muscle, Stonewall’s trans activism was no match for the brave women of Blighty.
Share Topics Identity Politics UK Want to read spiked ad-free? Become a spiked supporter. Those of us who stood up to the imposition of woke on Britain were routinely smeared as being on the ‘wrong side of history’. But now the tide that laps this sceptered isle is turning.
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Feb 13, 2025 | 
spiked-online.com | Julie Burchill |Tom Slater
Share Topics Politics UK Want to read spiked ad-free? Become a spiked supporter. ‘The gaiety of nations’ is a lovely phrase, as nations are generally in the news when they are in a state of woe. Originally, it was Samuel Johnson’s tribute to actor and playwright David Garrick (‘I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure’), but I can’t help associating it with political leaders.
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Jan 15, 2025 | 
spiked-online.com | Julie Burchill
Seeing disasters as a form of celestial retribution is irrational and reactionary.
Share Topics UK USA World Want to read spiked ad-free? Become a spiked supporter.
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Jan 15, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Alexander Larman |Byron’s Women |Julie Burchill |Justin Brierley
It may only be halfway through January, but the two opposed branches of the younger royal family have both made their first significant public statements of the year. Meghan and Harry, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex came forward with a typically tone-deaf and self-aggrandizing attack on Meta, which ended with a plug for the Archewell Foundation and reminded us all, after a relatively quiet 2024, how irritating their presence in public life continues to be.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Alexander Larman |Byron’s Women |Julie Burchill |Philip Hensher
Who do the Duke and Duchess of Sussex think they are? Since their quasi-abdication from the royal family five years ago, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have seldom found a publicity angle that they were not prepared to exploit for their own personal (and commercial) gain. But the sheer effrontery of the statement that they have put out this week, criticizing Meta for scaling back its fact-checking initiatives from public posts, takes some beating.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
spectator.co.uk | Julie Burchill
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 were being housed in fabulous hotels, dined every night on fine food and wine so we shut up and took the coin.
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Jan 10, 2025 | 
nysun.com | Julie Burchill
“Politics is boring” was the received opinion when I was a child. It was a weird reaction, considering politics is about the supremely important issue of the rights we hand over to others so they can tell us what to do and, increasingly, what to think. This changed with Mrs. Thatcher. Elements of adoration and hatred in the electorate’s attitude toward her combined to create a climate of excitement, added to by her own scenery-eating personality.
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Jan 9, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Michael Farr |Julie Burchill |Philip Hensher |Thomas Lambert
Georges Remi, better known as Hergé, the creator of Tintin, was a failed journalist. His first job after leaving school was on a Brussels newspaper, Le Vingtième Siècle, but boringly in the subscriptions department. His mind was set on becoming a top foreign correspondent like some of the leading names of the 1920s.
