Is it ethical to raise a royal baby in captivity? - October 2018 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - October 21st, 2018

Royal babies are baked to order, like lucky pies, to provide gurgling distractions in times of crisis. Last week, the world’s scientists agreed we have 12 years to limit the worst climate change damage or face mass extinction. Within days, as floods washed away the villages of the Aude valley and their delicious French wines,…

Planet Earth calling Doctor Who’s new Time Lady: save us - October 2018 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - October 14th, 2018

Last week, there was really only one story. And it wasn’t that a children’s television science-fiction character, who never reproduces or has sexual relations with anyone, is now played by a human of a different gender than at any point previously. Despite this, like all the other crying centrists, I wept hot snowflakes to witness…

Don’t drag Abba into Theresa May’s dead cat dance - October 2018 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - October 7th, 2018

The only available room in Birmingham last Tuesday night was an Airbnb on Edward Street. Usually the Birmingham tourist board are giving them away free, with incentivising jars of Bovril and vouchers for the legendary Hurst Street cafe Mr Egg. “Eat like a king for under a pound!” But tonight, Birmingham was buzzing. There was…

Take back control – buy water, bin the Daily Telegraph - September 2018 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - September 9th, 2018

It is very easy to sneer and criticise without offering any viable solutions yourself. And I should know. I have been doing it for the best part of three decades now myself, across a variety of media, to deadlines, for money, like a snowflake Clarkson. But I am a shallow and cynical entertainer, not a…

Denmark sows seeds of discontent over Brexit - September 2018 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - September 2nd, 2018

It was Andrew Rawnsley’s column in last week’s Observer that first made me aware of the danger a no-deal Brexit would pose to British sperm supplies. Up to 50% of our sperm is imported into the United Kingdom from Denmark alone, its cross-border movement currently micro-managed by EU organ and tissue directives, but now red…

A floppy-haired beast of Brexit walks among us - August 2018 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 19th, 2018

The Herefordshire legend of Black Vaughan tells the story of an evil 15th-century nobleman who returns in various spectral forms – a black fly, a black dog, a black bull, some gerbils – to molest farm girls, spill milk, and upset apple carts. But the dead aristocratic pest is eventually subdued by 12 priests and…