Will Cameron’s recipe for ‘successful’ films result in a glut of silent comedies? - January 2012 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 22nd, 2012

When I was starting out as a standup, I worked nights in an orange juice factory. I got £3.50 an hour and as much orange juice as I could lick off my two hands. The amount of orange concentrate we added to the raw drink at the initial stages determined whether it was bound for…

What a tragic wasted opportunity to present a true portrait of the Iron Lady - January 2012 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 15th, 2012

I have been too busy to see The Iron Lady (which I assumed was a distaff spin-off from Marvel’s Iron Man), but none the less, I am now about to use it as a lead-in to discussing the critical rehabilitation of Margaret Thatcher. I did, however, find time to watch Troll Hunter last week, an…

You scumbags, you maggots… leave that sacred Pogues song alone - January 2012 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - January 8th, 2012

The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl. Photograph: Brian Rasic/Rex Features When Colombian drugs lords invented Father Christmas as a marketing tool for cocaine, back in the 1980s, they could never have imagined that this red-faced, overweight man, whipping his staff while shooting through flurries of “snow”, would one day become beloved by infants worldwide. And when,…

G2 quiz of the year: Stewart Lee’s general knowledge ANSWERS - December 2011 The Guardian - By Stewart Lee - December 25th, 2011

Round 1: The Five Things 1 What weighs as much as 21bn suns, is 10 times the size of our solar system, breaks down the physical laws of space and time, and can swallow itself and everything around it? a) Eamonn Holmes’s stomach b) The newly discovered largest ever black hole, in the NGC 4889…

G2 quiz of the year: Stewart Lee’s general knowledge - December 2011 The Guardian - By Stewart Lee - December 25th, 2011

Round 1: The Five Things 1 What weighs as much as 21bn suns, is 10 times the size of our solar system, breaks down the physical laws of space and time, and can swallow itself and everything around it? a) Eamonn Holmes’s stomach b) The newly discovered largest ever black hole, in the NGC 4889…

Father Christmas wouldn’t be subcontracting model castles to carpenters - December 2011 The Guardian - By Stewart Lee - December 20th, 2011

Christmas 1972. My mother and I lived at my grandparents’, and my grandad had had a stroke. I wanted Father Christmas to bring me a castle for Christmas. I did not realise this was essentially asking my cash-strapped mother for an extra and expensive gift. But Father Christmas delivered the castle, and it was waiting…