How a sex robot ended up on The One Show sofa - May 2017 The Observer - May 14th, 2017

Artificially intelligent humanoid sexual partners are now commercially available. And indeed, I have often wondered if I myself am in fact one such “sex robot”. My lovers always disengage from me in silently satisfied wonder, and rarely request second encounters, having had their expectations soul-shatteringly exceeded, their sexual futures rendered endlessly disappointing. I’m joking of…

Even standup has been weaponised by fake news - April 2017 The Observer - April 30th, 2017

Last Sunday, Le Pen was predicted a 92% landslide; Serge Gainsbourg’s zombie corpse, barely discernible from his living form, rose from the grave and endorsed the Front National; and, apparently, 10-hour queues meant it wasn’t worth busy French metropolitan liberals turning up to vote, as they would not then have time to drink absinthe in…

No space is safe when even our TVs are spies - March 2017 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - March 12th, 2017

I only got a “smart” television set 18 months ago, so I have already avoided years of covert surveillance by the CIA, the FBI, MI5, CI5 and NWA. No one is safe from Samsung’s all-seeing Eye of Sauron. Apparently, a deeply embedded program currently enables the intelligence agencies to note and monitor anyone who is…

I can heal divided Britain with my show for everyone - March 2017 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - March 5th, 2017

I am a standup comedian, and simply putting the words “standup comedian” in inverted commas in your below-the-line comments on this column will do nothing to change that, you Brexit-crazed cyberbots of billionaire Trump-backer Robert Mercer’s referendum-shaping Cambridge Analytica company. Sad! Last week, in Truro, as part of the endless tour I use these columns…

Roll over, grandma, and tell Robert Peston the news - February 2017 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - February 26th, 2017

What would a coup d’état look like? Would you even notice if one was happening all around you? Should we even be allowed to use the phrase coup d’état, now that we are leaving the EU? Should we return the very words themselves to the vile continent whence they came, and accept back in turn…

A knockout week for the post-shame political class - February 2017 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - February 12th, 2017

Knock knock? Who’s there? Benjamin Netanya. Benjamin Netanya who? That’s right, can I come in and see Theresa May please? Before you clog up the below-the-line comments for this column with criticisms, I am aware this knock-knock joke doesn’t quite work, logically. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was left standing at the unanswered door of…