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Terence Blacker: The heroic career of an unserious man

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Someone surely should commission a biopic based on the bizarre life of Gyles Brandreth, that Zelig in the world of contemporary celebrity. For more than 50 years, Brandreth has played the fool in one way or another, modifying and varying his act and career as the culture around him changed.

Terence Blacker: Can we talk about me now please?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 GMT

That contemporary phenomenon, the commercially-sponsored academic survey, can normally be relied on to reiterate whatever the received idea of the moment happens to be. It might be the general hopelessness of men, or the death of childhood innocence, or the frightfulness of modern Britain. This week, though, an unpromising little study, commissioned by a wine company from a social behaviour unit at Sussex University, has stumbled upon an interesting development in our social life.

Terence Blacker: The best of British for the Olympics

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Every country which has hosted the Olympics has used it for image purposes. China presented itself as powerful and organised. Australia projected a sunny yet cheerfully competitive nature. The problem so far with the London Olympics has been to decide what exactly our national brand of Britain is.

Terence Blacker: We must fight them in the fields

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It has taken an unlovely trio to bring current attitudes towards the poor old British countryside into sharp and alarming focus. Donald Trump, James Packer and John Prescott are united in their view that the landscape is an expendable asset, there to be exploited like any other.

Terence Blacker: The new breed of bossy vicars

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Perhaps it is time for Professor Richard Dawkins to scale down his famous campaign on behalf of godlessness. His great enemy, religious faith, may not be defeated but, on recent evidence, the Church of England at least is developing a talent for self-sabotage.

Terence Blacker: An artist who remains himself

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

For the past 12 years, Bob Dylan has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. As the list of his achievements has grown longer, so have the reasons why he will never win it. He is a musician, he is American, he hates awards ceremonies and now, with an album of festive favourites called Christmas in the Heart, he has definitively blown his chances. If there is one thing which the earnest, thin-lipped committee-members in Stockholm distrust above all, it is a sense of humour.

Terence Blacker: A rubbish way to save the planet

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Somehow it seems all wrong for Hilary Benn to be chairing a rubbish summit this week. One tries to picture him sitting, like Guy Fawkes, on top of a vast pile of unacceptable waste, but he is altogether too neat for the part. There is too much unnecessary packaging. He looks as if he belongs in a Whitehall office, signing off some harmless government directive, rather than having to talk to us all about slop buckets and gasification.

Terence Blacker: Is Britain really so unhappy?

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

There will be dancing in the streets of Oslo at the breaking news that Norway has topped an important United Nations survey. The dancing will be decorous and well-behaved because, according to the UN's Development Programme, Norwegians now live in the most developed, socially evolved country in the world.

Terence Blacker: Spinning out of control in the blogosphere

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It has been a grim week in that increasingly murky place, the blogosphere. In America, the widespread practice of slipping secret payments to internet "reviewers" has caused the Federal Trade Commission to rule that all covert advertisements appearing in blogs must be declared. In Paris, the woman whose nom de blog was "La Petite Anglaise" has announced that she will no longer be sharing intimacies online. Here a story about the Prime Minister's health has been revealed as a nasty little rumour from a small-time blogger.

Terence Blacker: National service: just what's needed

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

At first glance, the hypothesis of Anthony Seldon's new book Trust would seem to make it a shoo-in for this year's Statement of the Bleeding Obvious Prize. We have lost trust in one another, says the headmaster/ biographer/ media pundit. Politicians, bankers, rugby players, journalists: we've come to believe they are all at it in one way or another. This universal distrust is eating away at the fabric of society.

Terence Blacker: Britain's green and pleasant divided land

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Because politicians only occasionally take into consideration what is happening in the British countryside, rural policies and initiatives, when they do come, often have an other-worldly, Alice in Wonderland feel to them.

Terence Blacker: All this fuss over a misdirected joke

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Could there be a more perfect nanostory than the sad tale of what happened when a university vice-chancellor made a joke about sex? A nanostory, you may recall, is one of those small media events which, in our fast, emotion-led culture, helps us to understand more important, long-term issues – sexism, for example, or suppression of thought.

Terence Blacker: When politics takes the fun out of comedy

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

As the political parties square up to one another during conference season, we can expect the usual sugaring of carefully scripted political jokes among the policy statements. The Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather set the tone this week with a rather odd comic routine at the expense of Mark Oaten, the MP whose political career was ended after stories involving a rent boy. To understand the punchline, one apparently had to know the full unpleasant gossip about the affair.

Terence Blacker: Can drinking ever be 'heroic'?

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

As another of the great soaks of England makes his woozy way into the great beyond, we should brace ourselves for a round of that now-familiar game, Spot-the-Euphemism. Keith Floyd is being celebrated as "a character" with "an appetite for life". Someone will describe him as "one of the last great lunchers". Almost certainly we will discover that he "did not suffer fools gladly".

Terence Blacker: Can drinking ever really be 'heroic'?

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Terence Blacker: Paranoia that sexualises childcare

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

I have a confession to make. In the past, I have had frequent, intensive contact with children. There were boys, sometimes as young as eight. There were primary schoolgirls. Over a period of a couple of years, I would drive to the White City estate in London, collect boys in my car and take them football training or to a Sunday morning boys' league game in Fulham.

Terence Blacker: Entering the new age of personal guilt

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The Canadian author Margaret Atwood, as brilliant a self-promoter in her way as Jeffrey Archer, has hit on a bright new idea. Her latest series of performed readings have been presented as a showcase of caring environmental concern. The musicians who appear are hired locally to minimise their carbon footprint. Programmes are printed on re-useable paper. Props are made out of plastic bags. Only organic, shade-grown coffee is permitted.

Terence Blacker: It's an insult when a townie expects rural life to be an idyll

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at the wonderful tale of Liz Jones, the me-and-my-mad-life columnist, and her experience of life in the country. With shotguns, sheep, toothless locals and a tearful heroine, it is as if Straw Dogs had been re-made by the Carry On team, with the part of the frightened townie, originally played Susan George, assumed by Joan Sims at her most shrewish.

Terence Blacker: Catholics do it on a wing and a prayer

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

So here we are, after all those dates and dinners and nervous telephone calls. It's just us, alone together, in a romantic double room at the Novotel. And for a whole night! I have to tell you, darling, there have been times when I thought we'd never – What are you doing?"

Terence Blacker: How songwriting can seriously boost your health

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

A highly promising research project into the power and effects of the popular song is being undertaken at the University of Hertfordshire. A lecturer in health psychology, Dr Nick Troop, has fed all the lyrics written by David Bowie into a computer and has come up with a list of words and phrases most likely to make a hit. At this point, revealing himself to be a frustrated pop star, Dr Troop strapped on his guitar, played a song he had written based on these musical buzzwords and posted a video of his performance online.

Terence Blacker: Bring on the Hooligan Cup

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Take a look at the photographs of the nasty ruckus which took place at Tuesday's football match between West Ham and Millwall. The mood expressed on the faces of those involved is not angry, or even defiant. It is joyful. These are guys having fun. In another context – a rock concert, say, or the celebration of a national sporting victory – those laughing faces and pointing fingers, the sparkle of excitement in those eyes, would remind us that, even in this age of alienation, old-fashioned male companionship is alive and well.

Terence Blacker: Politics has no place for these celebrities

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The much-publicised campaign which encouraged members of the public to photograph MPs enjoying their holidays in some unexplained sleazy way has not been going terribly well. The campaign group behind MP Holiday Watch must have hoped that it would produce something at least faintly embarrassing – Eric Pickles in speedos perhaps, or Hazel Blears windsurfing – but so far there have been slim pickings: a couple of shots of Peter Mandelson in shorts, a rather desperate report that Alan Duncan was staying at a "luxury hotel" in Bali, and that's about it.

Terence Blacker: Why does a philosopher need to join the clamour for speed?

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

A photographer searching for an image to capture the true strangeness of early 21st-century life could do worse than to visit Heathrow's Terminal 5 this week where, amid the throng of August holidaymakers, a philosopher is at work. Occasionally, he will interview passengers. As he taps away at a laptop computer, his words will appear on a giant plasma screen behind him.

Terence Blacker: Rugby players are experts at passing blame

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

There is nothing quite like big-time, high-profile sport to influence non-sporting behaviour in wider society. As the football season gets under way, we shall soon be hearing how some incident involving a player (pampered, overpaid, ill-disciplined) or a manager (ill-tempered, unsporting, disrespectful to authority) has set a terrible example to young people everywhere.

Terence Blacker: An aversion to seriousness runs deep

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It must sometimes be frustrating to be the director of the Edinburgh International Festival. Throughout August, the headlines tend to be about comedians, buskers, contortionists and body-piercers, with the Fringe rather perversely pushing the concerts, dance, opera and drama of the main festival into the wings.