No more schmoozing with the enemy on TV shows - November 2016 The Observer - November 20th, 2016

The danger in meeting politicians is that they seem all right and then, as a comedian, it is much harder to summon up the manufactured anger required to despise them for personal commercial gain. I have a mortgage. I can’t afford to find myself thinking things like “You know, Ken Clarke isn’t so bad once…

Brexit Britain is desperate for a decent genesis myth - October 2016 The Observer - October 30th, 2016

We are entering a second dark age. But the light that flickers on the screens of our iPhones, from a five-second clip of a dog sliding on some ice, is blinding us to the encroaching blackness. Our civilisation teeters at the abyss. We are 8th-century Lindisfarne monks, spotting black Viking sails on the horizon and…

In Mel and Sue, the true spirit of punk lives on - September 2016 The Observer - September 18th, 2016

Paul Hollywood is named after a stupid place. And Mary Berry changed her surname to that of a popular cake ingredient in 1970, in a self-abasing quest for self-raising fame. We expect little moral guidance from either Hollywood or Berry, and we receive none in return. But in refusing to follow The Great British Bake…

All Corbyn needs now is a krautrock endorsement - September 2016 The Observer - September 11th, 2016

Last week Jeremy Corbyn welcomed the endorsement of the 80s Birmingham band UB40, in front of a room of baffled journalists. But then a rival version of UB40 declined to endorse the Labour leader. The Corbyn narrative became collateral damage in the titanic battle of two warring factions of the once mighty pop-reggae pioneers, supposedly…

Where was Putin when Corbyn needed him? - August 2016 The Observer - August 28th, 2016

In Edinburgh, where I write this, there is concern that the city’s newly opened branch of the Kremlin-backed news agency Sputnik is intended specifically to destabilise post-Brexit English-Scottish relations. Message to Putin: “Don’t worry, Vladimir baby! We can handle this one ourselves!!” Nonetheless, let us compare the contrasting media manipulation strategies of Putin’s Russia and,…

Poor Rudolf Bing must be spinning in his grave - August 2016 The Observer - August 21st, 2016

As the third most consistently critically acclaimed British standup comedian of the 21st century, I usually spend my summers at the Edinburgh fringe, trying to intimidate younger comedians into quitting while simultaneously manicuring my own legend. I have attended the metrosexual arts event every August since 1987, except for 2001, when I was too broke…