Monthly Archives: June 2007

A sad, disgusting story

There is a scandal on at the moment in Stockholm about a 32-year-old man who went by “hotboy” online, and seems to have had sex with 130 young girls whom he met over the net. He had Aids, or at … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Sweden | 4 Comments

Dreaming of Sweden and stranger things.

One title liked by Granta for my new book is Dreaming of Sweden. Does this explain why, one recent morning, I said in an authoritative tone, as if soothing a nervous diner, We have boiled Lapps; we have stuffed Lapps … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Blather, Net stories | Comments Off on Dreaming of Sweden and stranger things.

Dershowitz, Trivers, and me

Alan Dershowitz, a professor of Law at Harvard, is an enthusiast for torture and an apologist for a Greater Israel. Bob Trivers is one of the most distinguished theoretical biologists alive. Dershowitz has been campaigning — alongside racist slime like … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Journalism, War | 3 Comments

Humans mating in thelondonpaper

Curious edit in CiF today, where I had a piece attacking Andy Coulson and tabloid journalism generally. I had written that Murdoch’s London freesheet thelondonpaper had urged viewers to go to its website and watch a video of two people … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Journalism | 2 Comments

More on “The Islamist”

Two reviews of this book have cropped up this week: there is a very sympathetic one from John Gray in the Literary Review. I think his conclusion is absolutely the right one — that the term for this stuff ought … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in British politics, God, War | Comments Off on More on “The Islamist”

just time for this

I know that we old Indie types tend to think that nothing could be worse than the paper we left. We’re wrong. It could be owned by Richard Desmond. Below is the front page of last Sunday’s, snapped in Waitrose. … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Journalism | 1 Comment

Interview technique

There is something uniquely humiliating about interview transcripts. I would like to believe that it is the lack of punctuation — even skilled audio typists are unable to punctuate at all, so far as I can see. But maybe it … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Journalism | Comments Off on Interview technique

Not to insult the female genitalia

But, really, is there a better epithet for Martin Peretz than “cunt”? This kind of thing looks just diseased from Europe, but it is worth remembering that it is treated as a perfectly respectable contribution to left-wing centrist journalism in … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Journalism | 6 Comments

Another thought on Tariq Ramadan

inspired by Rupert in the comments. TR is a real hate-figure for the likudnik Right in America. I recently had a flier from The New Republic advertising a 40,000 word hatchet job on him, no doubt timed to coincide with … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in God, War | Comments Off on Another thought on Tariq Ramadan

A thought on reading Tariq Ramadan

Perhaps the most important thing about learning religion young is that we tend to internalise the phrases and the doctrine, gradually introducing sense into our understanding, as well as meaning. And then one comes across the same thing done from … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in God | 2 Comments