The inspirational Leicester comedy festival awards ceremony, which I attended on Monday in the ballroom of the refurbished Grade II-listed Mercure Leicester Grand, could only have been improved by a multimillionaire performatively punching another multimillionaire in the face. Nonetheless, my once-in-a-lifetime Legend of Comedy statuette win was overshadowed by the violent brawling of the Oscar…
My Covid-postponed standup tour continues. Another Thursday morning; another hotel room; another opportunity to purloin branded shower caps and shoe-mitts that I will never use, yet which signify an indefinable victory over normal life, from which I appear to have fatally exempted my nomadic self. My stolen mini shampoo bottle supply will outlast my hair.…
A nakedly corrupt and evidently narcissistic leader, surrounded by a phalanx of accommodating acolytes, enriched his supporters with liquidised public assets and spurious government schemes, flagrantly broke international treaties, trashed domestic political standards, systematically flooded social media with fake news, used his power over the press to spread disinformation over many decades, sought to destabilise…
Superyachts seek safe havens. Property portfolios dissolve. Lawyers are engaged, accountants contracted. Politicians confect plausible denials over ostentatious donations. Tory party co-chairman Ben Elliot deletes online boasts of his company’s “15 years’ experience providing luxury lifestyle management services to Russia’s elite and corporate members”. It seems there were oligarchs everywhere, all along. We’ve been living…
Did you know the UK government had a Flickr account? A fast-moving succession of unexplained photographs create an impression that things involving Tory politicians are happening, at a very high level, and at some speed, but offer no explanation of what they mean. It is perfect – the taxpayer-funded, vanity-engineered photo-diary of a group of…
I’m back on the road until August with my five-star standup show, Snowflake Tornado, mouthing confirmation-bias to packed rooms of masked elitists. Over six nights at the Oxford Playhouse, I saw the familiar and friendly staff and crowds return, though the historic Eagle and Child pub sadly appears to have closed. It was here in…