John Walsh



Profile:
Full name: John Walsh

Area of interest: Current affairs, social and cultural issues

Journals/Organisation: The Independent

Email: [mailto:j.walsh@independent.co.uk j.walsh@independent.co.uk]

Personal website:

Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/john-walsh

Blog:

Representation:

Networks:



Biography:
About:

Education: Wimbledon College; Exeter College, Oxford; University College, Dublin

Career: Evening Standard: features editor; The Sunday Times: literary editor; The Independent (magazine): editor

Current position/role: Assistant editor, columnist and special feature writer (also interviewer, restaurant reviewer)


 * also writes/written for: New Yorker, Harpers & Queen, Tatler, Q, Mojo, The Word

Other roles/Main role:

Other activities: Director of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, 1997 and 1998

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight:
 * HarperCollins: interview
 * MadameArcati.blogspot: The John Walsh Book Party

Broadcast media:

Video: Presenter of Radios 4's Books & Company (for three years); regular appearances on BBC Radio 4 quiz show, The Write Stuff

Controversy/Criticism:

Awards/Honours:

Scoops:

Other:



Books & Debate:

 * The Falling Angels (1999) OCLC 42405797
 * Are you talking to me?: a life through the movies (2003) OCLC 51623507 ~ watch meet the author (VIDEO)
 * Sunday at the Cross Bones (2007) OCLC 71346640

Latest work:

Speaking/Appearances:

Debate: 

The Independent:
Column name:

Remit/Info: Current affairs

Section:

Role: Columnist

Pen-name:

Email: [mailto:j.walsh@independent.co.uk j.walsh@independent.co.uk]

Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/john-walsh

Commissioning editor:

Day published:

Regularity: Weekly

Column format:

Average length:



Articles: 2013

 * Photocopiers that get figures wrong? iPhones that rewrite texts? The machines are fighting back - The manufacturers blame it on “compression levels” and “resolution settings” but we know better, don’t we? The gloves have come off our supposedly benign electronica - 8th August
 * Simon Cowell is having a baby with the wife of a close friend - but he remains as inscrutable as ever - His achievements are huge, but defy logic. He is a considerable power in the global music industry without, it seems, having much interest in actual music - 2nd August
 * David Cameron's G8 playlist choices, deciphered - David Cameron presented his fellow summiteers with a USB playlist of new British talent including Alt-J, Rudimental and Laura Mvula. But what did they make of it? - 1st August
 * Anxieties? They're attacking from all sides - It seems we’re getting madder and I can't say I'm surprised. In fact I've made my own study of the more virulent new disorders... - 26th July
 * I might just be on the scent of what will guarantee the future of the bookshop - The short-tailed baboon of Sumatra stands a better chance of survival than Hatchards - 20th July
 * It’s clear who should be running Egypt: this genius of a 12-year-old - I doubt there's a handful of British kids who could match this boy's acumen - 18th July
 * Costa Concordia Trial: Produce your explanation, Captain, and pray make it improbable - Costa Concordia's Captain Francesco Schettino originally told investigators he tripped and fell into a lifeboat. Ah yes. I've done it a hundred times - 11th july
 * Music brings the world together. Except when it’s Wagner - Dame Gwyneth Jones, the super-soprano who nailed Brunhilde has been asked to step down as president of the Wagner Society. Did she go quietly? What do you think? - 26th June
 * From charmer to bully: My encounter with Charles Saatchi - I've never met a man with such strict views on what music my son should buy - 20th June
 * ‘Culture’ means whatever you want it to, especially if you’re in public life - From history to art or creativity to good manners, the lines are blurred when it comes to cultivating culture - 13th June
 * An interview is not an interview unless someone completely loses it - If interviewees happen to become a little cross with you, it’s more fun and better copy - take these for example - 6th June
 * Christine Angot, her husband's ex-girlfriend and the cardinal sin of fiction: not actually making it up - As writers from Kureishi to Bainbridge have found, the business of writing real people into novels is tricky, especially if theirs is a real-life story you’re dying to tell - 30th May
 * Sometimes Richard Dawkins must despair of us - This week saw a return to the stranger side of mystical and religious belief - 23rd May
 * Oscar Wilde meets Charlie Chan – you can’t beat a good spy fiasco - It seems modern espionage plays out like an old-fashioned drama - 16th May
 * Liam Fox says Tories should learn to speak like the man in the pub. This should be interesting... - 9th May
 * Royalist, Republican or agnostic, let’s agree that the Queen doesn’t look like a barrel-chested flanker - We crave reality from our monarchs - but this new portrait has it all out of proportion - 4th May
 * Insert your reason here why Amanda Knox is guilty/innocent - This interview should have cleared up any lingering doubt... - 2nd May
 * Imagine the horror of lying on your death bed knowing you’d never made a bucket list - What drives this list is the fear of dying with regrets for what you haven’t yet done - 27th April
 * Pope John Paul II has been fast-tracked to sainthood - so where do we sign up? - This is one of those moments which people like Richard Dawkins must relish, when the secular and the sacerdotal collide with a screech of metal - 25th April
 * Margaret Thatcher's funeral: A little heckling, a few tears, not much unity – but a lovely day out - Once the sun came out, the great British public's fiercely held political allegiances seemed soon forgotten - 18th April
 * North Korea: If we’re laughing, it’s laughter in the dark - The difficulty is in taking this rogue state seriously when our instinct is simply to laugh - 11th April
 * The lady with the handbag became as recognisable as churchill and his cigar - From ‘Spitting Image’ to the West End stage and Hollywood, Mrs Thatcher’s unique image was the gift that kept on giving for comedians and screenwriters - 9th April
 * Social class: The markers have changed – but Nancy Mitford could still divide us up - Life was simpler when society was divided into Upper, Middle and Working, and meant landowners, doctors and shopkeepers - 4th April
 * I’m sick of men like Bill Roache ‘justifying’ their behaviour in the 1970s - Real chaps knew the difference between screen-based fantasy and real-life behaviour - 22nd March
 * Have you ever tried taking away a teenager's iPhone? As A-Levels loom, my advice is, don't - We’ve pampered our children too much this century, with the latest gadgets and pop concert tickets and now we're too afraid of them to be able to discipline them - 14th March
 * Oi, HMRC – hands off our possessions! - We think it's bloody cheek for officials to rifle through our suitcases, but the invasions into our privacy don't stop there - 1st March
 * I just want to watch the Hovis TV ad, I don’t want to take part in it - Sony has launched a patent that could see the ads of the future turned into interactive videogames - 21st February
 * Gary Goldsmith, Kate Middleton's uncle, is a right royal party planner. Bottoms up! - Another Middleton family member is planning to write a book, hopefully with better sales than the last effort. Thank goodness our writer has had a sneak preview - 14th February
 * The Magdalene Laundries report confirms the need to keep church and state matters separate in Ireland - Q: How do you get an apology from the Irish government? A: With a crowbar. Plus, below: hot news for dinosaur lovers! - 7th February
 * Today it’s office drug tests. Tomorrow you’re sacked for having a fag - The police are going to start drug-testing at work - but what's next? - 31st January
 * An Irish councillor wants special licences for rural drunk drivers. What would Flann O'Brien say? - 24th January
 * Ukip, Berlusconi, and the Black Death. It must be the new Dan Brown - The author's new thriller will be published in May - 17th January
 * Learning lines by heart: like having your own private iPoems library - In times of need, the pupils forced to learn poetry as part of a new Government scheme will be deeply thankful for the lesson - 10th January
 * Big Fat Quiz going ‘too far’? It’s as old as the oldest joke - Are James Corden and Jack Whitehall being reviled for their jokes? Or for who they are? - 5th January



Articles: 2012

 * So what would the Victorians make of the modern-day Christmas card? - Just imagine what two Victorian gents would say about our crude modern greetings - 20th December
 * From Winona to Angus, now we know how long rehabilitation takes - Back in the day you did something bad, you were found out, and that was it - 13th December
 * They're teaching manners on board French trains. Can we have it here please? - Frankly, I expected better of the French, but it seems there are just as many feet on seats on French trains as there are on the 6.30 to Petersfield - 6th December
 * Tact is not Anna Wintour's strong suit. And I hope she knows the embassy's moving... - Our writer offers advice to the Vogue editor-in-chief on the life that would await her should she be made a diplomat - 5th December
 * So, Andrew Marr, another great BBC cover-up has been exposed - but this time, no nudity - The BBC have received complaints about failing to show naked tribesmen - 29th November
 * Orhan Pamuk's Museum of Innocence is now a reality. Can we do something similar in London? - Walking through the streets of Istanbul, our Notebook writer came across a charming realisation of a literary idea. We should do some of that closer to home, too - 22nd November
 * Save our regional theatre, because if you can’t tread these boards, the show’s over - It's the Government's responsibility to fund regional theatre; plus are Albanians the last Europeans about which TV producers can be rude? - 17th November
 * Have Justin Webb and the man from business school no idea what literature might actually be? - A computer cut and pasting vaguely relevant bits of kit isn’t creativity - but try telling that to the guests of Radio 4's Today programme this week - 2nd November
 * Some sins remove you from the guest list. Others just don’t matter - We tend to forget the crimes of people when we really want to meet them - 25th October
 * 'Racist' is the new black: let’s only call it racism when it really is racist - We shouldn't be offended by talking about race, only when people are actually being offensive - 18th October
 * I’ve got the builders in. And they’re cooking better than Nigella - The heavenly smell of frying bacon wakes me in the morning from my "work in progress" kitchen - but social etiquette says I can't go down and join the fry-up - 11th October
 * A degree is like an Olympic medal - you want a gold not a report card - Do students really need a full-length, in-depth report detailing how they performed at university? - 6th October
 * Can the BBC really be a hotbed of adulterous passion? I do hope so - As stories of debauchery are reported in the BBC, John Walsh ponders office romances in some top BBC shows - 27th September
 * How to do office banter – without causing offence - The Compliance department at News International is apparently advising journalists about office behaviour: saying they should avoid banter, show each other respect and report bullying by senior staff - 20th September
 * I hope we’ve finally grown out of novels that ‘zip along’ - Say goodbye to adventure stories, erotica, vampires and Norwegian crime - and get ready to welcome back the literary novel - 13th September
 * Ignore mixed messages – eat less and move more - if you're fit and healthy despite being obese (I'm thinking the pre-Liz Hurley Shane Warne) you're in no more danger of dying than people of ordinary size - 6th September
 * Spare us from gun-slinging US justice - The DA decides on the death penalty after consulting victims' families - 26th July
 * Too many cooks can solve all the world's problems - The most exclusive foodie club in the world meets this week in Berlin to celebrate its 35th anniversary, and reaffirm the importance of food in preserving global amity - 19th July
 * Do we want novels written by the readers? - Forget Ana Steele and Christian Grey – the relationship between books and the internet gets weirder and more intense all the time - 29th June
 * No one has a monopoly on the truth about the King of Porn – including his son - For schoolboys in 1960s London, the words "Raymond Revuebar" conjured up a world of head-spinning wickedness - 21st June
 * You can't beat a literary festival for a late-night row - So I was at this posh dinner party in a lovely farmhouse outside Hay-on-Wye after a day of ceaseless Welsh rain, and the conversation was all about international rivalry - 14th June
 * You're not fat. You just need to put on some height - We don't, by and large, go around calling fat people "Fatso" or "Lardarse" or "Gutbucket" even if their silhouette is less than Greek - 31st May
 * Who wants a genius as their mentor? Not me - When Naomi Alderman was rung up last autumn and asked if she'd be interested in "some kind of literary mentor scheme", it must have surprised her that she was being offered the protégée role - 24th May
 * The black-tie dinner at an Oxford college that told me dress codes do matter - At Oxford University, students at Brasenose College have been told off for coming to breakfast in jim-jams and dressing-gowns - 17th May
 * Thank you, John Peel. I'm no longer ashamed - I saw with mixed feelings that John Peel's record collection is up for inspection by his adoring fans - 3rd May
 * I never used to worry about mobiles damaging your health... - When I watch my daughter with her iPhone clamped to her ear, I think: is it time we got serious about mobiles? - 26th April
 * It's the season of lone idiots. Just try stopping them - The Royal flotilla will surely offer an unmissable opportunity- 12th April
 * Killers aren't the result of what's on TV - Words like 'civilisation' express our attempts to rein in our savage instincts - 5th April
 * Me, Ziggy and the passion of pure fandom - Notebook: I was a man possessed. I looked a fright and didn't care - 30th March
 * The perils of reviewing restaurants - think of us, dear reader - I will never forget the intestinal mayhem wrought by a single naga chilli I ate in a Sussex field - 24th March
 * Simply everyone is plumbing the depths this year - The Mariana Trench is rapidly becoming this year's must-visit destination. Forget Mauritius, Ibiza and the Florida Keys - 22nd March
 * Understanding literature is better than just calling it names - Notebook: Oh, no, look who's "giving offence" now – it's that well-known reckless tearaway Dante Alighieri of Florence - 15th March
 * You've got to not believe in something - I was intrigued to hear about The Asexual Society. It's not exactly a society, but a group of people who come under the banner of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (Aven) by their shared non-experience: they don't experience sexual attraction - 1st March
 * Will Germany ever be allowed to feel its past is not its present? - I'm looking forward to seeing this new movie called Iron Sky. It's based on a simple premise that, in 1945, a Nazi army flew to the dark side of the Moon to set up a swastika-shaped compound and, in 2018, they're poised to return to Earth - 23rd February
 * I'd visit a museum about kissing at the movies - The Mob Museum has just opened – on Valentine's Day, which was the occasion for a celebrated massacre 83 years ago last Tuesday - 16th February
 * If only the magical Angela Carter were around to record life in 2012 - Hearing A Postcard from Angela Carter read out on Radio 4 this week and finding the complete Carter oeuvre back in bookshops, it struck me how much, although she died 20 years ago, she'd have enjoyed life in 2012 - 10th February
 * The poor guy - he'll have to change his stationery - Barely an hour after the announcement, Sir Fred Goodwin's Wikipedia entry was headed "Fred Goodwin" - 1st February
 * Talking posh is on the rise. I blame Downton - Of all the bits of the human body we're keen to improve these days, the voice is surely the most surprising - 26th January
 * Self-improvement is on the rise. At last, a true return to Victorian value - 19th January
 * A hatchet job is not the real thing unless it's done with wit and learning - Sing a song of critics/ pockets full of lye/ four and twenty critics/ hope that you will die,/ hope that you will peter out, / hope that you will fail..." wrote a fuming Ernest Hemingway to a Mr Lee Wilson Dodd who'd given his story collection Men Without Women a bad review - 12th January
 * Like the music they played, life after radio for the ex-DJs is a tale of hits and misses... - For every DJ who found a second career in business, like Bruno Brookes (who's now a muzak supplier to companies like Spar and Ikea) and his old colleague Peter Powell (who co-owns a management company for showbiz performers,) there are two casualties - 6th January
 * The 24 OMs who show that even in Britain there's a place for meritocracy - There's something about the word "honour" that provokes dishonourably furious responses - 5th January



Articles: 2011

 * Save record shops – buy CDs - It's been a shocking experience to see our only major music chain going dark - 23rd December
 * Don't dare come between me and my books - 15th December
 * Anyone read about any good sex lately? - 8th December
 * About this, I think I can trust Paul McMullan - 1st December
 * If I know the right answer, please don't overrule me - 24th November
 * You delude yourself if you believe in chivalry - Has chivalry died out, or is it alive and kicking online? - 3rd November
 * If I had an e-reader, no one would know my guilty Jackie Collins secret - A poll of British readers has discovered something shocking - 27th October
 * Words to go with Olympic deeds - Poetry and the 2012 Olympics draw closer together - 6th October
 * A new TV series celebrates the swinging Sixties era of Pan Am stewardesses - Feature: But was it really all white gloves and cocktails? John Walsh discovers the truth about the original trolley dollies - 29th September
 * Leave a comment – but get a life - Of all the figures upon whom the online community might train their arsenal of vilification, female contestants on University Challenge should rank pretty low, don't you think? - 8th September
 * 'No, we shouldn’t just Google it': John Walsh laments the death of the reference book - Feature: Sales of reference books are sinking fast as we turn online for the answers to life's big – and small – questions. But our civilisation would be infinitely poorer if Roget's, Brewer's and Fowler's go out of print - 1st September
 * Nomads who've earned a home - It's ironic that what has annoyed Basildon Council about the 80-odd Irish Traveller families, who today face eviction from the Dale Farm site in Essex, is that they don't actually travel anywhere - 1st September
 * The odd thing was, you never really wanted the third book - It was widely believed by authors (though seldom admitted by publishers) that the three-for-two choice of books on Waterstone's tables was not a marketing ploy by the booksellers - 1st September
 * is the cruellest month?'' - A look at the digital literary hierarchy - 25th August
 * far away – and so baffled'' - Trust me to miss the party. I was away on holiday last week when the London riots were in full swing - 18th August
 * nice little Olympic earners'' - Joe Biden, the American Vice-President, is a bit of a chancer isn't he? - 4th August
 * - that's Eric Idle at the next table'' - I'm just back from Los Angeles, where they make up their own rules about reality - 28th July
 * bid for my peach sorbet'' - For some reason, people keep asking me about Rupert Murdoch. "You're a journalist," they say - 14th July
 * men just don't care how they look'' - What are we chaps to make of the fact that Hugh Laurie has been signed up as the face, no the smell, no, hang on, the ambassador of L'Oreal cosmetics? - 7th July
 * revolution that is women at the wheel'' - Will the issue of women drivers become a force for change in Saudi Arabia? - 1st July
 * university going to be worth it?'' - New measures will "allow" students to rate their lecturers as part of a students' charter or review - 30th June
 * I learnt at the Playboy Club'' - The Slutwalk business has had repercussions. Men and women have been squaring up to each other all over the place - 16th June
 * we made our tantrums official'' - Now now. Temper temper. Our thoughts are with Matt Prior, the bearded and slightly alarming England wicketkeeper, who, completely by accident, smashed a window at Lord's Cricket Ground - 9th June
 * Marmite done to deserve this?'' - Of all the bloody cheek. The nation woke yesterday to the news that Denmark's Veterinary and Food Administration has gone and banned Marmite from its shelves - 26th May
 * that's how my taxes are spent ...'' - You know that worried feeling you get, while looking through your monthly bank statement, that there are some items which you can't identify? - 19th May
 * rising, or the end of time?'' - I spent last week with a river lapping at my feet. I was in America's sublime Deep South, researching a story about music - 12th May
 * the Queen will be among friends'' - The organisers of the Queen's visit to Ireland next month won't be getting any medals for tact - 21st April
 * books: Abridged too far?'' - So much to learn, so little time... In every publisher's catalogue, you'll find the slenderest volumes on the biggest subjects. But huge concepts can't simply be boiled down into bite-size books - 20th April
 * to keep up with the Letwins'' - In this anti-elitist age, snobbery seems ridiculously outmoded. But, argues John Walsh, there's an awful lot of it about ... - 5th April
 * should cherish poetry, not kill it'' - You won't, I suspect, get many hoodied and snarling protesters attacking policemen with Molotov cocktails at the news that the Poetry Book Society has lost its Arts Council of England grant. But that doesn't stop it being a disgraceful decision by the ACE's Literature Department - 31st March
 * can you 'dumb down' a cookery competition?'' - The new series of MasterChef, which kicked off this week with a shiny new set, coolly nightclubby lighting, a platoon of nervous contestants and a lot of weeping, has come under attack - 19th February
 * – not rules – will tell us when we've gone too far'' - We are all - women included - capable of sexist remarks - 27th January



Articles: 2010

 * day to remember'' - Three decades ago, a bride and her prince charmed the nation. Since then, scandal, sell-outs and cynicism have changed our attitudes to Royal weddings. So, asks John Walsh, will we raise the bunting this time? - 17th November
 * very earthly representative'' - For 60 years, the Dalai Lama has been a spiritual leader and an emblem of dispossession. He's also appeared in adverts, charmed celebrities and gained a million followers on Twitter. John Walsh charts the virtues and vices of a thoroughly modern monk - 15th November (feature)
 * by the new ghostbusters'' - 28th October
 * Cowell, the Booker awaits you'' - 15th October
 * with cocoa - a taste of paradise?'' - As he judges a post-Blumenthal Masterchef, John Walsh asks if some gastronomic combinations are scientifically wrong - 13th October (feature)
 * is so many things to so many people'' - For a chap who probably doesn't exist, a man-invented metaphysical construct, God has been everywhere this week - 10th September
 * of the unexpected: The dark side of bedtime stories'' - A new biography of Roald Dahl throws light on the private life of one of our best-loved writers. But why are so many children's authors such damaged human beings? - 6th September (feature)
 * Brother: the series that made surveillance acceptable'' - It was the TV show billed as a social experiment. But as Big Brother draws to a close, John Walsh argues that it has made Britain more like Orwell's dystopia than we could have imagined - 18th August (feature)
 * agreeing and start fighting'' - How do Tories and Lib Dems get through the day without winding each other up? - 29th May
 * the faithful of the resurrection of Christ isn't for wimps'' - It's been a tough Easter weekend for Catholics - 6th April
 * wonder what a quilting bee inside a maximum security wing is like'' - 30th March
 * reunions give us a chance to monitor each other's, ahem, progress'' - 23rd March
 * are raging over whether bullfighting and siestas are art forms'' - 16th March
 * 1937, the enemy invasion was youths on bikes in leather shorts'' - 9th March
 * estate agents need something to perk up their drooping spirits'' - 2nd March
 * can anyone be allergic to lettuce? It's 90 per cent water isn't it?'' - 23rd February
 * thought the roads in Kazakhstan were bad. But potholes in London...'' - 9th February
 * little sadists will insist on cigarettes being sold singly in paper bags'' - 2nd February
 * word? It depends on whether you mean the human bits, or rubbish'' - How instructive to find out what's unacceptable to the BBC - 26th January
 * Office predicted a warm winter. Cheers guys'' - 19th January
 * Farrah or Foxxxy are not a girlfriend experience I recognise'' - 12th January
 * gave him £20. He and his gormless son instantly said: "Please, more!"'' - 5th January



Articles: 2009

 * the police hypnosis is the stupidest idea in crime-busting'' - 22nd December
 * of the City'' - My daughter's Christmas list appears to solicit a profusion of luxury goods - 15th December
 * and bred a Brit...'' - ...but apparently I know nothing about Britishness - 8th December
 * Come All Ye Faithful isn't a historical record of who was at the manger'' - 1st December
 * vampire tale used to be a mix of bats, blood, cleavage and snobbery'' - 24th November
 * a politician lays a wreath at the Cenotaph, it's a mark of respect'' - 10th November
 * Mac survived 42 years of madness, sex, drugs, failure and success'' - 3rd November
 * was defending the most testosterone-fuelled bloke in 20th-century literature'' - 20th October
 * it happened. An actual British chap was proposing in public'' - 13th October
 * Club high jinks keep coming back to haunt the Tories'' - It’s traditional for posh, violent dimwits to refuse to take any blame - 6th October
 * am currently bestriding the televisual universe like an aloof Colossus'' - 29th September
 * shalt not covet thy neighbour's Kit Kat Caramel (£1.39 for 3)'' - Product placement? Yes please - 15th September
 * there were book clubs. Now it's glee clubs. Haven't you joined one?'' - 8th September
 * object to being forced by politicians to change the way I use light'' - 25th August
 * the pigs' trotters and focus on the basics'' - It's sad when a restaurant that opened to general delight in the spring is forced to hang up its oven gloves for good in the autumn - 24th August
 * of the City'' - God wants you wealthy... and he'd also like your cinema, please, oh and a fast car - 18th August
 * are absurd little organisations with large amounts of cash to splash'' - After the bankers, the MPs and the BBC, it's the turn of quangos. Absurd little organisations with pompous names and large amounts of money to spend on party balloons and champagne flutes, they're being blamed for blowing too much cash on celebrity guests - 11th August
 * a t*** would not know the meaning of the word'' - politicians and swearing seldom go together - 30th July
 * take a policewoman prisoner then say you've been called a rude name'' - 28th July
 * Frank set the vogue for misery memoir'' - The book told the saddest story in the voice of a kid of 10 - 21st July
 * Therese is visiting Wormwood Scrubs prison on her tour of England'' - The bones of St Therese of Liseiux will be put on display in the Victorian chapel in Wormwood Scrubs prison as part of a tour of several English cathedrals - 7th July
 * much for Janis's letters? Holy cow. Is rock 'n' roll the new literature?'' - 30th June
 * airily quotes Celine and carries works by Zola to power lunches'' - 23rd June
 * drama, ecstasy – who'd have thought cricket can be such fun?'' - 16th June
 * Vorticists, Imagists: where are the manifesto writers today?'' - 9th June
 * everyone else is in Bermuda shirts and Rockport deck shoes, I prefer a feast of gore and grossness'' - 2nd June
 * it’s time a major newspaper investigated cleaners’ expenses'' - 12th May
 * did relationships in movies become less important than lifestyle?'' - 5th May
 * told him to get lost, he asked her to imagine them making love...'' - 28th April
 * Ballard was our own private, Home Counties, prophet of doom'' - 21st April
 * bouncers stand in for teachers, what on earth will the children learn?'' - The life of a supply teacher in the Armageddon of the classroom was never a bed of roses. Called in as a pale substitute for a respected teacher who'd gone off to have a baby, had fallen ill or been sent on some "refresher course," stand-in teachers were like koalas introduced to a bear-baiting pit - 14th April
 * then, long pepper grinders represented the epitome of la dolce vita'' - 7th April
 * your phone sounds weird, don't worry, it's just the apocalypse again'' - 31st March
 * Darwin was a boho boozer on the quiet – an idle proto-Wildean dandy lying on his Otto'' - 24th March
 * know what Kim Jong-Il objected to: anchovy and capers on the same pizza'' - 17th March
 * – it's like making love to a bee-yoodiful woman ...'' - 10th March
 * Obama doing in denim and trainers? Back to the skinny suits, please'' - Tony Blair, even in the boiling heat of Gaza, wears a tightly buttoned club tie to emphasise the unearthly gravity of his role as Middle East envoy - 3rd March
 * you walked through the back quad you'd soon be as stoned as a poodle'' - What was William Hague up to, when he told a Sunday newspaper that MPs should confess about their youthful drug experiences? The shadow Foreign Secretary showed no inclination to spill les haricots about his own youthful drugs regimen, but he seemed oddly keen that others should - 17th February
 * isn't the ideal time to visit Sligo's drizzly fields, but I had high hopes'' - 10th February
 * garden looks as if it has been smothered by white supremacists'' - So, this is what it's like in the Siberian steppes, is it? I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised - 3rd February
 * doesn't work. It's too naff, too flyblown, too close to the poverty line'' - 27th January
 * was based on a cartoon prostitute who'd do anything for money'' - 13th January
 * Wilde's not worthy of Worthing? Come on, you can't rewrite history'' - The burghers of Worthing have come out against poor Oscar. Some vocal locals think that their haven of gentility should abandon its links with the great Irish playwright and stop celebrating the time he came to stay - 6th January



Articles: 2008

 * to watch Shane MacGowan lose it'' - It was the whirling lager bottle that did it - 23rd December 2008
 * Paul feels he can hector the Dalai Lama'' - He exists in a heady stratosphere of Olympian fawning - 16th December 2008
 * pre-Christmas party in Dulwich – how judgemental could it be?'' - 9th December 2008
 * the literati come to party, it's time to clean up your bookshelves'' - 2nd December 2008
 * an odd bloke, this Mr Flowers – an effete man-boy Mormon dandy''' - 25th November 2008
 * enforcers have to throw their weight around – but not like this'' - the newly appointed Minister's exhaustive instructions to his civil servants (as laid out in an 11-page document called "Working with Liam Byrne") have come to light - 18th November 2008
 * must be an opening for czar of middle-aged moaning'' - 11th November 2008
 * shouldn't newpapers print odes to Obama or about the banking crisis?'' - 28th October 2008
 * 'Who decided to phase out celluloid projection, like Kodak camera film?''' - 21st October 2008
 * 'You can't mark down a school because there's a lard-arse in Year 13''' - 14th October 2008
 * Johnson, a cuddly sheepdog? Not any more – just ask Jacqui Smith''' - 7th October 2008
 * 'The stately homes of England need cash. Stand by for a class cataclysm''' - 30th September 2008
 * Lennon's sexual fantasies have to do with Gandhi and Keats...'' - 23rd September 2008
 * 'When sex rears its head, says Barbara Cartland, a woman should be a nymph fleeing from a satyr''' - 16th September 2008
 * bile, attitude and foul language were always the stock in trade at the Colony Room Club''' - 9th September 2008
 * you really call a town talented just because a historical figure once dropped in to buy a choc ice?'' - 2nd September 2008
 * Cut with Gordon's sharp tongue, a protégé escapes hell's kitchen'' - 28th August 2008
 * unusual to find such an old-fashioned sexist lurking inside the bosom of the Catholic celibate'' - 26th August 2008
 * 'The witch-doctor lady squatted on her seat, melting lead over a fire. It was time for my Turkish exorcism...’'' - 19th August 2008
 * Dan Dare, our own comic-book hero, believed in non-violent solutions. No blockbuster films about him, then - 22nd July 2008
 * What was the bone of contention that caused this apparent schism in the Ciccone family? A light fitting? - 15th July 2008
 * 'So what if Amanda Foreman was snapped au naturel? You'd see more flesh at a duchess's dinner party - 8th July 2008
 * A trip to Ibiza? I rushed home to pack sunblock, Imodium and my most violently coloured Bermuda shorts - 1st July 2008
 * Will there be gangs offering Rafael Nadal a roll of greasy fivers to make a balls of his backhand? - 24th June 2008
 * I marvelled at how Flo, a slender reed of a girl, could sing like one of the Furies, like an avenging angel - 10th June 2008
 * What better way for Natascha to catch up with modern Austria than by interviewing its stars on a talk-show? - 3rd June 2008
 * From his wheelchair, Gore Vidal glowered indignantly, like a man who had been exhumed against his will - 27th May 2008
 * If we saw next door's Jerry being savaged by rabid lurchers, we'd just raise our eyes to heaven - 20th May 2008
 * Contestants will have access to the south nave, from which they can hurl the javelin over the central altar - 13th May 2008
 * Being economical with words, my daughter chose to build a Roman gladiator, rather than write about one - 6th May 2008
 * Wretched, tumbledown and full of ineffable melancholy – why derelict homes bring shame on London - 29th April 2008
 * The Government already knows so much about you. And the new survey should take care of the rest - 22nd April 2008
 * In 1943, Sir Oswald Mosley was released from prison to find Vidal Sassoon standing against him... - 15th April 2008
 * What would Jane Austen have made of the micro-management of Wayne and Coleen's big day? - 8th April 2008
 * This furtive, self-important person used to be called a traffic warden, but from today he has extra powers - 1st April 2008
 * There's a dark, twisted braid of resentment and superiority that runs through Naipaul's make-up - 25th March 2008
 * Will the Commons have to receive Sarkozy's words in silence, or can our MPs heckle him in French? - 18th March 2008
 * Environmental pollution is one of the new deadly sins, according to the Vatican. How vacuously trendy - 11th March 2008
 * The rock'n'roll greats might have started out in grotty locales, but my son's band was in mortal danger - 26th February 2008
 * Armed robbery was obviously an offence. But so, too, was Little Bastard with the Peashooter outside Waitrose - 19th February 2008
 * My book will be translated, then I'll wait for the Hong Kong dollars to roll in. How difficult can that be? - 12th February 2008
 * Slowly but surely, I'm turning into a Grumpy Old Git. I've suddenly gone all Victor Meldrew about shop assistants - 5th February 2008
 * His dark materials - Fed up with ill-fitting, off-the-peg disasters, John Walsh and his teenage son Max decided to see if it's possible to buy a perfect bespoke suit – on a budget - Monday, 4th February 2008
 * Should we be all snotty about the news that McDonald’s will have the power to award its own A-levels? - 29th January 2008
 * The Home Secretary is revealed as a kebab-scoffing hard nut who might enjoy several pints of an evening - 22nd January 2008
 * Keats and Byron would have been intrigued by what their successors have evolved into... - 15th January 2008
 * Unwritten and unread books areall-too-eloquent testimonies to our lack of energy or imagination - 8th January 2008
 * The bin men refused to take away anything that looked like paper. It was time to get environmentally serious - 1st January 2008



The Independent: 'BTW'
Column name:

Remit/Info: Reflection on topical events with an emphasis on culture

Section:

Role: Columnist

Pen-name:

Email: [mailto:j.walsh@independent.co.uk j.walsh@independent.co.uk]

Personal website:

Website: Independent.co / John Walsh

Commissioning editor:

Day published: Saturday

Regularity: Weekly

Column format:

Average length:



Articles:

 * on Salinger'' - Here was an author who wrote the way people spoke - 29th January 2010
 * all got a kick out of the Kung Fu master'' - David Carradine's finest hours were probably those spent inhabiting the character of Kwai Chang Caine in the early-1970s TV series, Kung Fu - 5th June 2009
 * the Playboy mansion crumbles'' - From the start, 'Mad Men' has been about the erosion of male identity - 10th February 2009
 * chose the winner. Now lay off him'' - If Sebastian Barry's book has faults, it ill behoves the Costa judges to say soYou chose the winner - 29th January 2009
 * That's not very rock'n'roll, Robert... - A Led Zeppelin tour minus Robert Plant calls important issues into question - 30th October 2008
 * call a Transparent Wall Cleansing Executive!'' - Remember when a 'flueologist' was simply a chimney sweep? It's time to cut the job-title jibberish, says John Walsh, executive originator (words) - 8th October 2008
 * orders for the pub?'' - 6th September 2008
 * A double honour for the storm-tossed Amy Winehouse this week... - 26th July 2008
 * Mrs Irina Ivanova, mother of Ekaterina... isn't happy about how her daughter has been portrayed in the British media - 19th July 2008
 * Uh-oh. We really must be in trouble. "Sub-prime" and "credit crunch" have just entered the Oxford English Dictionary - 5th July 2008
 * So he dashed it off. But that doesn't mean it's not art (about Martin Creed) - Wednesday 2nd July 2008
 * This week's award for faultless logic goes to Ms Petra Faile... (who) believes the world will end in 2012 - 28th June 2008
 * Local politics doesn't inspire terribly strong emotions, does it? - 21st June 2008
 * Could we stop saying "inappropriate" when we mean "wrong"? - 7th June 2008
 * Six inches of rain fell on writers and readers, just and unjust, at the 21st Hay Festival last week - 31st May 2008
 * A Dirty Harry moment this week for CSI Bryan Lawton of the Greater Manchester Police... - 24th May 2008
 * Spare us any more politicians' rhapsodies about pop music... - 17th May 2008
 * We may resent The Rough Guide to England's description of us... - 10th May 2008
 * Spare a tear for the plight of America's motorists. Something terrible has happened... - 26th April 2008
 * Doh! Look what Homer Simpson has gone and done... offend the entire population of Argentina - 19th April 2008
 * The scary Mark E Smith, veteran lead singer with The Fall, has been sounding off - 12th April 2008
 * The visit of the French President and his délicieuse wife has been a five-day orgy of mutual adulation - 29th March 2008
 * Government pronouncements on Health and Safety tend to be greeted with ridicule... - 22nd March 2008
 * ...the spectacle of a slumbering government minister is a common one worldwide - 15th March 2008
 * Great Moments in Theology, No 1... - 8th March 2008
 * Environmental insight of the week comes from Shlomo Benizri, an Israeli MP, who blames homosexuality for bad weather - 23rd February 2008
 * Former schoolboy tormentors of inept teachers will remember the annoyance that could be inflicted... - 26th January 2008
 * Three books on Cécilia Sarkozy in the same week! - 12th January 2008
 * We've all left umbrellas in hotel rooms, but this is ridiculous... - 5th January 2008



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