The passing of well-loved celebrities is always marked not only by an outpouring of grief but also by an outpouring of newspaper copy. These panegyrics are often parodied in Private Eye with versions such as the “celebrity and me” and “how I taught the celebrity everything he knew” whereby the writer manages to place themselv...
As the country heads inexorably towards an EU referendum, the polls show that most people can barely contain their indifference. Despite this apathy, politicians and the media are running around talking loudly as if nothing else mattered. So why is it that on something of seemingly such importance most people simply switch off. ...
There are few aspects of life that don’t involve making compromises. Every part of our existence involves curtailing individual freedom or postponing desires in order to co-exist with others. We happily obey rules that limit our personal liberty, such as driving on the left or paying taxes, in order to benefit from the security...
Who wouldn’t want to be a CEO. It’s a role that comes laden with extras: status, authority, power and money. And for those at the very top, there’s the chauffeur-driven car, and even perhaps a private jet whisking you between Davos and some other gathering of the great and good. Not only does the job provide recognition o...
As the Euro referendum debate hots up, both sides are in full storytelling mode. And this means storytelling in both senses of the phrase: that of offering compelling visions of an In/Out future, and telling stories of the wild, exaggerated, porky-pie variety. Many people, including seasoned campaigners and commentators...
How to change Executive Pay How to change executive pay? These words are, frankly, less of statement preceding a solution than a plaintive cry. We have arrived at a point where pretty much everyone agrees that there is a problem. However, it’s a bit like London house prices where everyone recognises the issue but no one is...
In the good old days one could usually rely on August to provide a steady stream of seasonal silly stories. The long, hot month served up nothing but ephemeral flotsam and jetsam which could happily be ignored. One could set aside newspapers for a few weeks in the sure knowledge that nothing of significance would settle on the idle...
Summer is over, annual leave has ended, Autumn is upon us, and it’s back to work. Despite the summer break it is all too easy to settle back into the same old routine and roll downhill to Christmas. All those dreams and ambitions of the summer, the wistful feelings of another way of living, all land with a bump when real life comes...
We are now living in a post-truth world, apparently. Recent political events have led some to conjecture that truth is passé, that facts are debatable, and that fake news is to blame. Some of this analysis comes from people genuinely concerned by how public discourse has become fact-lite, but the rest seemingly comes from those st...
