Column by David in The Times.
CHRISTINA HARDYMENT won’t love me for this, but I’ve virtually never bought an audiobook. I’m not sure why, but, as with my ambivalent attitude towards books in translation, it’s bound to be something to do with me being such a literary control freak. Let’s see.
The BBC have posted a great clip on YouTube of David appearing on Friday Night with Jonathon Ross.
“Jonathan Ross leaves David Baddiel in charge while he takes a bathroom break.”
The BBC don’t allow their YouTube videos to be embedded – so follow this link instead.
Column by David in The Times.
YOU MAY HAVE READ that last week Salman Rushdie, accustomed these days to a relaxed level of personal security compared with that which surrounded him in the 1990s, arrived in Philadelphia to be greeted by an armed escort and guard dogs. He was, reports stated, “absolutely horrified”. What perhaps Salman didn’t realise is that the tooled-up phalanx surrounding him was there not, I suspect, to protect the great proponent of modern magical realism from any leftover fatwa implementers but rather from any attractive women who, in an unguarded moment, he might suddenly decide to marry.
Column by David in Esquire.
There’s never going to be equality as long as women continue to fancy Andrew Marr.
Who would you say is the most under-represented group in our society? Muslims? Black people? The disabled? The Barron Knights? I would contend it’s none of these. It’s the Unattractive. By which I don’t mean The Really Ugly, who do tend to be represented, albeit as objects of scorn in freak shows such as The X Factor and Wife Swap, but just your straightforward middle-of-the-Coca-Cola-League, Who-Looks-At-The-Mantelpiece-When-You’re-Poking-The-Fire Plain Janes/Jasons. Sue Cook, the erstwhile presenter of Crimewatch and Children In Need, once came, I remember, 73rd in Viz’s annual list of what it likes to call Borderline Boilers, and her entry in Certain Angle Stunnas chart said: “Nothing to write home about.” She’s the kind of person I mean, although, of course, she did used to be on the telly, so that’s slightly contradictory. But having said that, she isn’t any more, which is no doubt due, in part, to her being nothing to write home about.
…read more (p.7)