“Dance, dance, wherever you may be! I’m the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Surrey Heath’s MP, And that’s why I get into clubs for free.” The Gove of the Dance, Sydney Carter, 1963 Few people will ever forget where they were when they learned that Michael Gove had been filmed dancing alone in…
Did the Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen cultivate lagoons of urine in his rural Leicestershire constituency? In 2014, the Environment Agency claimed lagoons at the Measham depot of his vegetable packaging and distribution company, AB Produce, emitted a pervasive urine smell. “It smells just like urine all the time – first thing in the morning until…
On Wednesday of the week before last I filed one of my supposedly funny “columns” for last Sunday’s Observer. I wanted to write a personal pastiche of feel-good op-eds about England’s near victory in the Euros and reference how Boris Johnson government’s calculated culture war tried to draw the squad into its sights, as surely…
A mural of Jadon Sancho’s fellow footballer Marcus Rashford was graffitied after Sunday night’s final. Four semen streaks spurted simultaneously from a tumorous cartoon penis towards Rashford’s face, suggesting a ruined urethra with multiple lesions. Perhaps this satirical penis had been snagged in a waste disposal, caught in a cruel penis trap, or nibbled by…