Journalism

Book reviewing was where I started out. I worked as a deputy literary editor, and then as a literary editor (at The Listener), and book reviews were my whole professional world. I am relieved not to have critical duties so much these days. I am a slow reader, and when I review a book, I read it twice and take a million notes – my review of the two books for the New York Times last autumn (attached here) took about a month to do. Elsewhere in journalism, I did spend four years as a very unlikely sportswriter for the Times, and wrote my book Get Her off the Pitch! about those experiences. Sportswriting was as close to “real” journalism as I have ever got, and four years of it was definitely enough for my lifetime…

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Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang

Reviews

In 1950, the legendary postwar crime reporter Percy Hoskins (of the Daily Express) published a book whose title would later be appropriated by a landmark British television series. This book, No Hiding Place, promised to be “the full authentic story of Scotland Yard in action” and it remains a compulsive…
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For New York Times, November 2016

Reviews

Imagine the progress of the English language as a moving train. It need not be a fast-moving train; in fact, it helps if you picture it chugging along majestically through a flat landscape. Our two authors are both actively interested in observing the progress of the train. One has spent…
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Features (2)
- Why arnt childrun being tort how 2 rite?
  
  I recently received this interesting example of written English. It is a letter to the customers of a hotel car park in Norfolk. The names have been changed, but not the text. Dear Costumes, Over the last few months there has been a few situations with the car park, so starting…
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- Feature on Psychics, Woman’s Journal, 1994
  
  When you spend any time in the company of clairvoyants, you realise there are certain things it is wise not to mention. For example, it is tactless to do the psychic “knock-knock” joke (“Who’s there?” “Knock, knock”), despite this splendid little reversal’s perennial appeal. Psychics also get tired of clever-dicks…
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Reviews (9)
- Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang
  
  By Max Decharne
  
  In 1950, the legendary postwar crime reporter Percy Hoskins (of the Daily Express) published a book whose title would later be appropriated by a landmark British television series. This book, No Hiding Place, promised to be “the full authentic story of Scotland Yard in action” and it remains a compulsive…
  Continue Reading…
- For New York Times, November 2016
  
  THE WORD DETECTIVE: Searching for the Meaning of it All at the Oxford English Dictionary, a Memoir By John Simpson, WORDS ON THE MOVE: Why English Won’t – and Can’t Sit Still (Like, Literally) By John McWhorter.
  
  Imagine the progress of the English language as a moving train. It need not be a fast-moving train; in fact, it helps if you picture it chugging along majestically through a flat landscape. Our two authors are both actively interested in observing the progress of the train. One has spent…
  Continue Reading…
- The House of Eliott
  
  BBC TV
  
  There are those who pooh-pooh The House of Eliott. When you mention that you will be snuggling down for an entire weekend in a darkened room with Series Two on DVD and a box of chocs, they automatically remind you of the French and Saunders parody “The House of Idiot” –…
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- Sisters of Salome
  
  by Toni Bentley
  
  If you were to cast about for the worst possible role model for the emancipation of women, you would feel you had hit the jackpot when you thought of Salome. For what is this hot little virgin’s story? Well, taking one’s information mainly from Oscar Wilde’s 1893 play (on which…
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- Will the Circle be Unbroken? Reflections on Death and Dignity
  
  By Studs Terkel
  
  In newspaper profiles connected with his new book, the legendary 89-year-old oral historian Studs Terkel has marvelled at how easy it was. “They say nobody wants to talk about death. Let me tell ya: everybody wants to talk about it!” What happens when we die? How do we support ourselves…
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- Feature on P.G. Wodehouse at Addington Golf Club
  
  P.G. Wodehouse
  
  A sandless bunker on a golf course near Croydon might seem like an unlikely site for a pilgrimage on a wet Tuesday in May, but if you are a worshipful fan of the great P.G. Wodehouse celebrating the republication of his books by Penguin, it is nothing short of the…
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- Rocket Dreams
  
  By Marin Benjamin
  
  Although Marina Benjamin does not specifically mention that red-letter year 2001, what a swizz it turned out to be, really. Some of us will never recover from the let-down; will never quite forgive Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke for raising too high a level of expectation about mankind’s unstoppable…
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- Running with Scissors
  
  By Augusten Burroughs
  
  Two scruffy teenagers in the grip of common teenage ennui are sharing McNuggets at a red plastic table in Northampton, Massachusetts. The date is some time in the 1970s — but it might be any boy, any girl, any time. Except for the details of the conversation. Because the girl,…
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- THE BRITISH SEASIDE: Holidays and Resorts in the Twentieth Century
  
  by John K. Walton
  
  It is hard to describe quite how one’s heart sinks at the phrase “the excitements of liminality” the first time one comes across it. A book about the seaside in the 20th century promises so much in the way of narrative and fun. Of straining canvas windbreaks and dazzling water,…
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Sports (7)
- November 15 1996 Forced to Look for Footie Stuff on the Internet
  
  Reporting how no big games were played because of internationals, and I was forced to look for footie stuff on the internet which was boring. If you search for news of Alan Shearer on the Internet, you may be surprised by the result. By latest information superhighway reports, Shearer plays…
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- November 2 1996 at White Hart Lane
  
  The event: November 2 at White Hart Lane Tottenham Hotspurs v West Ham, premiership
  
  It’s beginning to annoy me that I have to miss Football Focus every week. And there is a sentence I never thought I’d write. But it’s frustrating. Lifelong football supporters keep telling me “You’ve got to watch Football Focus, you know; it’s a ritual” — but I’m always on a train somewhere on…
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- October 26 1996 at Ashton Gate
  
  The event: October 26 at Ashton Gate Bristol City v Notts County, Division 2
  
  No sign of travel fatigue yet, amazingly, despite the fact that Ashton Gate is one of the worst sign-posted football grounds I ever visited, as well as being the most awkwardly positioned. It took me about two days to get home. Six weeks into this bizarre assignment, and a few…
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- October 18 1996 at Molineux
  
  The event: October 19 at Molineux Wolverhampton v Port Vale, Division 1
  
  “You’ll like Molineux,” they promised in the office. I was new. I was not to know Wolverhampton supporters took it all so seriously. In the week following this column I was obliged to appear on Midlands Today and argue with Mark McGhee over whether football ought to be entertaining The…
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- October 12 1996 at Selhurst Park
  
  The event: October 12 at Selhurst Park Wimbledon v Sheffield Wednesday, premiership
  
  The ability to make the best of things seems to be important in football. At Selhurst Park, when you take your seat for a Wimbledon game, they don’t play Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” gut-bucklingly loud on the PA (as they do at Wembley, making all the blood rush into…
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- October 9 1996 at Wembley
  
  The event October 9 at Wembley England v Poland, World Cup qualifier
  
  A friend of mine has an interesting global theory of weight loss: that you can lose weight, but someone else gets it. “Trust me,” she says, “It’s got to go somewhere.” I was reminded of this interesting transference idea (which explains a lot, actually) on Thursday morning, when the burden of…
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- September 28th 1996 at the Dell
  
  The event: September 28 at the Dell Southampton v Middlesbrough, premiership
  
  The advertising on the little electronic scoreboard at The Dell started to get hypnotic, after a while. “In a tight corner?” it would ask, whenever a corner was taken in the match. Struggling not to, I would take my eye off the ball yet again, just to check that the…
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