Howard Jacobson



Profile:
Full name: Howard Jacobson

Area of interest: Society, values, cultural issues (esp. Jewish culture, class identity)

Journals/Organisation: The Independent

Email: [mailto:h.jacobson@independent.co.uk h.jacobson@independent.co.uk]

Personal website:

Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/howard-jacobson

Blog:

Representation:

Networks:



Biography:
About:

Education: Stand Grammar School, Whitefield; Downing College, Cambridge (studied under F.R. Leavis)

Career: Worked as an academic before becoming a successful author and commentator

"An acerbic cultural critic with a passion for literature and art, he is known for his ebullient wit as well as his unique take on the Jewish experience in Britain." (source: The Independent) Current position/role: Commentator
 * Contemporarywriters.com: biography (British Council)


 * also writes/written for:

Other roles/Main role: Novelist, Broadcaster

Other activities:

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight: Contemporarywriters.com: critical perspective (British Council)
 * “...Our funniest, most overlooked, most furious living writer”, profile by Allison Pearson, The Daily Telegraph, 27th April 2003
 * Something Jewish.co: Interview by Elizabeth Manus for Nextbook.org
 * Open2.net: interview for Ian McMillan's Writing Lab (BBC - Open University) (AUDIO/mp3/text)
 * Jewish Book week: Howard Jacobson in conversation with Peter Florence, 2007 (AUDIO/podcast)
 * The Clive James show: Howard Jacobson, writer, interview (VIDEO)

Broadcast media:
 * BBC2: 'Arena' television documentary on Howard Jacobson, 'My Son the Novelist', 1985
 * ITV: 'South Bank Show' edition about The Mighty Walzer, 1999
 * Non-fiction books 'Roots Schmoots: Journeys among the Jews' and 'Seriously funny: from the ridiculous to the sublime' have inspired related television series
 * Channel 4: 'Howard Jacobson Takes on the Turner', 2000
 * ITV: 'South Bank Show' special 'Why the Novel Matters', 2002

Video:

Controversy/Criticism:
 * Extract from following article (1): 'I wonder if I might take robust issue with an article my fellow columnist Johann Hari wrote last week, in which he complained about a “campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people”'
 * 1) Howard Jacobson: If there really is a smear campaign to try to silence the critics of Israel, it isn't working - Call those who disagree with you ‘witch-hunters’ often enough and they will see you as one in turn - 10th May 2008
 * 2) Johann Hari's article: Israel is suppressing a secret it must face - How did a Jewish state founded 60 years ago end up throwing filth at cowering Palestinians? - The Independent, 28th April 2008
 * 3) see also Melanie Phillips comments: Whoops, what a giveaway Spectator.co, 8th May 2008

Awards/Honours:
 * Booker Prize winner 2010, appreciation here by Boyd Tonkin
 * Everyman Wodehouse Award for comic writing, 1999 for 'The Mighty Walzer'; Wingate Literary Prize, 2005, 2006, 2007 for 'Kalooki Nights'

Scoops:

Other:



Books & Debate:
Fiction:
 * Coming From Behind (1983) OCLC 10017578
 * Peeping Tom (1984) OCLC 11624058
 * Redback (1986) OCLC 29004273
 * The Very Model of a Man (1992) OCLC 30816297
 * No More Mister Nice Guy (1998) OCLC 39223348
 * The Mighty Walzer (1999) OCLC 59402448
 * Who's Sorry Now (2002) OCLC 48753912
 * The Making of Henry (2004) OCLC 55502757
 * Kalooki Nights (2006) OCLC 73503418
 * The Finkler question OCLC 619924695, Man Booker nominated novel, Bloomsbury, 2010, reviewed in The Sunday Times by Adam Lively here

Non-fiction: ✒ Howard's page at Amazon ✒
 * Shakespeare's Magnanimity: Four Tragic Heroes, Their Friends and Families (1978) OCLC 3845150 (co-author Wilbur Sanders)
 * In the Land of Oz (1987) OCLC 15660854
 * Roots Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews (1994) OCLC 59846508
 * Seriously Funny: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime (1997) OCLC 36780833

Latest work: Whatever It Is, I Don't Like It: The Best of Howard Jacobson, published by Bloomsbury, 2011

Speaking/Appearances:

Debate: 
 * Intelligence Squared debate: America has lost its moral authority (with: Matthew Parris, Will Self, Professor John Gray, Simon Schama, Martin Amis), 29th April 2008

The Independent:
Column name:

Remit/Info: Society, values, cultural issues (esp. Jewish culture, class identity)

Section:

Role: Commentator

Pen-name:

Email: [mailto:h.jacobson@independent.co.uk h.jacobson@independent.co.uk]

Website: The Independent / Howard Jacobson

Commissioning editor:

Day published: Saturday

Regularity: Weekly

Column format:

Average length: 1100 words



Articles: 2014

 * Russell Brand and Miriam Margolyes: Don’t fall for the false charms of those two pantomime preachers - Little by little all argument evaporates, and soon what a fool thinks, we all think - 1st November
 * Shabbes exerts a pull on all Jews, and today is bigger than ever - We call it the day of rest, but I’m not convinced it’s rest we most need - 25th October
 * This is what it feels like to not win the Man Booker Prize - You never know for certain when you are going to win a prize, but you know for certain when you aren’t - 18th October
 * The parable of the rabbi from Kiev, Yom Kippur and the half-eaten bar of chocolate - Did he think he could half atone for half a sin? Did he think he might be half forgiven? - 11th October
 * Inside Venice for George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin's wedding - A reliable and avuncular-looking short man had chosen to get married in Venice – and I was there - 4th October
 * Strictly Come Dancing has been struck by the curse of light entertainment - As the man who brought the twist to Cambridge’s English faculty, I know about dancing. And Strictly trivialises it - 13th September
 * Few things are more shameful than death – which may be why so many of us go at a time of our choosing - The ultimate ignominy for any living human being is to be reduced to a carcass - 6th September
 * I was about 12 when I began celebrating my birthday by sobbing over sad music - Some thoughts lie too deep for tears. But it’s through tears that we access them - 30th August
 * Why do women opt for cosmetic surgery when there is such beauty in age? - Women are trading their dignity and grace for the furious flower of plastic evil - 23rd August
 * Stand up for curry! It can save your life - As long as you’re not sitting down while eating it - 9th August
 * In his elitism, his intransigence, his scorn of the masses, Michael Gove is a Coriolanus for our times - Wherever two or more people agree it’s time to worry. Wherever thousands agree it’s time to run - 19th July
 * Line the streets for a cycling race? You might just as well watch a swarm of wasps - Let every cyclist join the Tour de France. Then we pedestrians will only have buses and juggernauts to worry about in town - 12th July
 * The planet is overheating – with vitriol and exaggerated feeling - There’s enthusiasm, and then there’s the hyperbole that’s overheating the planet. We all need to cool down a little - 5th July
 * The truth is, nobody has the first clue whether Isis is a threat to this country - These three little words that mean more to me than any others: I don’t know - 28th June
 * A night at the ballet can teach you more about British values than any harebrained political campaign - At the Royal Albert Hall were all the reminders one needed that English culture is a many splendour’d thing - 21st June
 * Why should poets engage with ‘ordinary people’? They don’t exist - Ordinary is just the word we use for the less intellectually sophisticated - 7th June
 * For years I have argued against holidays and giving back the Elgin Marbles. I was wrong about both - A funny thing happens when you wander round the Acropolis Museum in Athens - 31st May
 * If we call Clarkson racist, what word do we use for Boko Haram? - If Jeremy Clarkson is to be condemned for anything, it should be his foolish obsession with cars - 10th May
 * If an exhibition gets gushing reviews, run a mile. - At least, that’s what I used to think - 3rd May
 * Jamaica Inn and why all programmes need subtitles - I can’t understand anything on TV. So let’s do away with the volume and put subtitles on everything - 26th April
 * Keep your shirt on Zac – we'd all be better for it - I consider the sexualisation of Mr Efron's body to be the mirror of Page 3 - 19th April
 * From Peaches Geldof to the 89-year-old who went to Dignitas, it’s not been a good week for death – or for those who’ve pronounced on it - Spare me ‘Our thoughts are with X or Y’ - 12th April
 * Doctor, doctor, if I eat 20 portions of fruit and veg a day, will I ever die? - This is a serious question with economic consequences for the planet - 5th April
 * Pharrell Williams may give the brain a cheap thrill. But for proper cerebral excitement, you’re still better off with Shakespeare - ‘Happy’ lights up no part of my brain whatsoever - 15th March
 * Get working class kids to fit in with the bourgeoisie? Take it from one who tried, they never will - If you’re successful, the middle classes will be queuing up to fit in with you - 8th March
 * Lewis Gill may not have meant his punch to kill, but any swing at a man's face is an act of barbarity - It's the mirror of our feelings, the register of our fears and sorrows - 1st March
 * If you want to alienate someone, use the telephony alphabet. It’s certain to drive you November Uniform Tango Sierra - The point of a secret language is to exclude those who don’t speak it - 22nd February
 * If there are too many people being bumped off in contemporary drama, it’s because writers have forgotten their Shakespeare - I don’t always agree with David Hare. But about the body count, we are as one - 15th February
 * The sacking of Kevin Pietersen, the last of the great mavericks, has killed any lingering interest I had in sport - Who would you rather have coming in to bat at number four? Mother Teresa? - 8th February
 * Those cleaning up Soho say they object to its sleaze. But isn’t that the whole point of the area I call home? - Sex itself seems to have given up the ghost and gone home to play on its computer - 25th January
 * The lingering death of Hayley in Coronation Street is just too painful for me to watch - Art isn’t life, whereas soap opera always somehow feels as though it is - 17th January
 * If the quenelle isn’t Jew-hating, why is it performed on the railway track to Auschwitz - In all my table-tennis triumphs while studying at Cambridge, I never felt the need to touch my right shoulder in tribute to F R Leavis - 11th January
 * A new year is by far the most upsetting date in the calendar - It marks the passage of time even more fatefully than birthdays do - 4th January



Articles: 2013

 * This Christmas try having yours hopes dashed and expectations thwarted. It will do you good - Doing without even when one doesn’t have to is a good principle to learn - 21st December
 * The fake sign language interpreter at Mandela's memorial is an irresistible metaphor for our times - The moment we forget our buffoonery, we invite the gods to slap us down - 14th December
 * Why have I started lecturing people in the streets? Maybe because I consider it a form of public service - Favoured topics are matters of practical morality, dress sense, litter – that sort of thing - 7th December
 * Sledging is an art, and here are the secrets of it - You'll need a ripe vocabulary, an ear for cadence - and respect for your opponent - 30th November
 * Yes, we do need to change the age of consent. To 35. Only then are people ready to have sex - The first pleasure of bodily love isn’t penetration - it's disobedience - 23rd November
 * A mix of madness and matter, Russell Brand evokes all the tedium of Shakespeare’s clowns - Is he clever or does he just use words we don’t expect him to use? - 2nd November
 * Listen up, I can teach you how to be hip - What's the difference between a hip barista and an ordinary one? I know the secret - 26th October
 * Surely Kings Cross can bring to mind grander literary references than just Harry Potter? - Nothing fires the imagination like railways - 19th October
 * A walking death: this mad pursuit of health is leading me round in circles - The less nosing around in your body you allow the better you are likely to be for it - 12th October
 * A return to form for Woody Allen? Don’t make me laugh – ‘Blue Jasmine’ certainly didn’t - In overvaluing work that is not ‘antic’ we are implicity devaluing the work that was - 5th October
 * The al-Shabaab massacre in Nairobi leaves a litany of unique tragedies - In these mass killings, it is the death of lovers that grieve me most - 27th September
 * It's a capital crime that London is now under siege from marathons and triathalons - First the marathon runner and now the cyclist have commandeered our space. In this they have support at the highest level - 21st September
 * I’ll take Obama (and Hector) over the utopists and dreamers who’d have us in or out of Syria - I like the US President for his refusal to refusal to take an absolute stance - 14th September
 * I studied Spanish at school. And French, and German, and Latin. So why can’t I be Gareth Bale? - The difference is that Bale stood up and delivered his speech in public - 7th September
 * Twerking pop stars and errant footballers I can give an opinion on. Syria leaves me stumped - It’s hard not to suspect, from the pitch of their voices, that those who rail against our going in today are the very people who railed against our staying out yesterday - 31st August
 * Dante put traitors in the final circle of hell, but does Bradley Manning really belong there? - The treacherous cut a dash in ethics as well as style, risking everything for principle - 24th August
 * I know, as a pogonophile if not a pogonolandrist, it’s the smooth of face who need watching - The question shouldn't be why do you grow a beard - but why do you shave? - 17th August
 * Forgive me, for I have sinned. Even if it was praying for rain to spoil the Aussies’ summer - I broke the first commandment of an English summer: do not beg for cold - 10th August
 * Twitter or toasters: if we don’t like what they bring to our lives, we can simply shut them out - If we blame the medium for everything, must we charge the toaster for inciting lust? - 3rd August
 * I was a self-hating child, so if it’s a choice between babies and my 100-year-old mother-in-law... - The old make for far more stimulating company than the young - 27th July
 * If the Rolling Stones don’t make a fascist of me, then Andy Murray surely will - Never join, is my motto. Never clap along, never sing along, never do as asked - 13th July
 * A fiver says it should be D H Lawrence’s face on the back of one of our notes - If Jane Austen had genius, then we need another word again for what Lawrence had - 6th July
 * We have a right to be grumpy old people – there’s much to be angry about nowadays - It's not retirement that defines getting older, it's refusing to play along - 21st June
 * In an age where everyone wants to be noticed, is being spied on such a bad thing? - If you don’t want agency geeks nosing into what you put online, then don’t put it there - 15th June
 * The Children's Laureate says education needs relevance, but is 'identifying' really so important? - As young readers we probably wouldn’t have said that the best books are inclusive in a way that transcends skin colour, religion or ethnic identity, but we knew they were - 8th June
 * According to the commentator Culpability Brown, we have brought these terrors upon ourselves - In what other context, these days, do we allow people to tell us we have it coming? - 1st June
 * Finding the sweetest way to be insulting to someone is one of the few consolations left to us - All things considered, calling someone a "swivel-eyed loon" isn't so bad - 25th May
 * It’s official: thanks to Stephen Hawking's Israel boycott, anti-Semitism is no more - Why is Israel alone of all offending countries to be boycotted? Perhaps because it's that offending country which also just happens to be Jewish? - 18th May
 * Whodunnits have become so unsatisfactory. The answers never live up to the questions - The climactic moments of Broadchurch and Mad Men are among the least enjoyable - 11th May
 * Sex, booze, fags and tweets: We're all addictive creatures and we don't know why - Only addiction can explain tweeting, an activity that appears to be so without sensual satisfaction in itself, but whose side effects are so damaging - 20th April
 * We have so much to thank Thatcher for – how to be together in avidity and envy - Today it’s the banker to whom we capitulate, on pain of his taking his talents somewhere else - 13th April
 * Knowing Shakespeare fiddled his taxes tells us nothing. And don’t say it makes him ‘human’ - It's beginning to look like a horrible nature fires the creative spark - 6th April
 * Qatada shows that it isn’t only injury we have to quiet; it’s our sense of the preposterous, too - We are told we must protect an advocate of violence from torture in his birth country - 30th March
 * Is Jane Eyre happy? Is Hamlet sad? You will never find that out with a Google search tool - This is a technology for which we have no use commensurate to its sophistication - 23rd March
 * Oh, for a judge who had read Dante or Shakespeare to sum up the tragedy of Vicky Pryce - The best summings up by the best judges are exemplary - this one fell woefully short - 16th March
 * A gross and cruel misjudgement did for Manchester United’s chances against Real Madrid - Where's divine justice when you need it? That red card should have been struck by a thunderbolt and burnt to cinders as Cüneyt Çakir waved it officiously - 9th March
 * What do George Galloway, the London Review of Books and the Third Reich have in common? A dangerous certitude when it comes to Israel - Concatenations are dangerous, but sometimes they make themselves - 2nd March
 * No truly happy man ever saw the need for exercise. And that’s why I’m putting on weight - I used to pride myself on being miserable, but can't keep it up anymore - 23rd February
 * It doesn’t take a nun in red lingerie to show that chastity is more complex than we think - Now that I'm no longer a boy I can imagine the consolations of a life without sex - 16th February
 * Stand-up and sitcom: Even with Stephen Fry on hand, this is no way to treat ‘Twelfth Night’ - Stephen Fry and Mark Rylance can hold an audience’s attention like no one else, but the Globe's production was grief as farce - 9th February
 * I don’t care for Scarfe’s cartoon – or political cartoons generally. But I don’t find it anti-Semitic - Cartoons are often expressions of indignation masquerading as comedy - 2nd February
 * I’d rather lose my dignity with a handstand on the toilet bowl than risk contamination - There are a thousands of ways to catch the Norovirus, and avoiding them takes dedication, skill and a certain shamelessness - 26th January
 * Zero Dark Thirty is already at the centre of a row about the way it depicts torture - Kathryn Bigelow’s new film about the CIA’s hunt for Osama bin Laden is facing criticism - and it's still to be released in the UK - 19th January
 * Cheetahs can run, otters can swim. But show me the animal that can hit three treble 20s - Darts is the game through which man can truly surpass himself - 5th January



Articles: 2012

 * How we failed Dickens in his bicentenary year - It’s easy to love the Christmassy Dickens. But can we deal with the brutally funny one? - 29th December
 * Yes, I did call you a pleb. I can say what I like when I’m angry. Now just open that gate - I sympathise with Andrew Mitchell and other frustrated swearers. Of all our human rights, isn’t the right to be offensive among the most sacrosanct? - 22nd December
 * When the random cruelty of the world arises from a silly joke, our sorrow is all the deeper - Don’t underestimate the sense retribution can appear to make of what is otherwise senseless - 15th December
 * Cameron and Chakrabarti treat press freedom as sacred, but aren't some things more important? - Whoever believes freedom loses its essential character the minute it admits impediment of any sort is in one sense right and in another dangerously insane - 8th December
 * Justin Welby and the secret Jewish conspiracy to take over the Church of England - Our new Archbishop has an ancestry stocked with Jewish effort and energy - 1st December
 * Why should we be surprised that Lowry had a dark side? As an artist, it's a natural part of the terrain - Next year, Tate Britain will hold its first major exhibition of Lowry after an extended metropolitan snobbery. What is to be gained by dismissing him as a sadist? - 17th November
 * Wordsworth knew it. Saatchi knows it. There is no getting over death, no moving on - The popular wisdom is that we must move on. Achieve closure. When I hear the word “closure” I reach for my revolver -10th November
 * As Hurricane Sandy approached, I flew into New York. And I wondered: was this all my fault? - Our columnist reflects on his consistently bad luck with natural disasters. Aren't we all occasionally just a whisker from a major historical event? - 3rd November
 * No ideology should be on a pedestal - Committing to an ideology is like wearing a daisy chain, break it and you can’t wear it - 20th October
 * My father knew Jimmy Savile. See the good in him, he told me. That was the mistake we all made - Our writer notes that behaving like a child has its uses even for adults - 13th October
 * I’m Jewish. Ed Miliband is Jewish. We’re all Jewish. So maybe Britain is One Nation, after all - Ed's father Ralph wasn't exactly a priest in the Temple of Solomon, but by invoking his roots the Labour leader makes a fearless - and flattering - point about Britain - 6th October
 * It’s the audience question you dread above all others. ‘Do you remember... ?’ - I was expecting to be reprimanded for any one of a thousand betrayals and broken promises - but this time the questioner was an old schoolteacher's daughter... - 29th September
 * This ‘Anna Karenina’ has overlooked virtues. Not least that it is true to Tolstoy - Critics have found the heroine insufficiently moving - but by always expecting to be swept off our feet we do a disservice to our artists - 22nd September
 * We British are not suddenly such a lovely people on account of all our medals - Yes the victories of our wonderful athletes were thrilling and emotional - but this country, like all others, is still capable of monstrous cruelty - 14th September
 * Suddenly everyone wants to talk about books, but nobody wants to read them - No one who cares about reading can fail to be alarmed at the closure of libraries and bookshops - 25th August
 * First the Mobot, then Kate Moss. It's like we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory - The women athletes beat the men (literally) hands down in the matter of modesty and reserve - 18th August
 * On that fabulous boat of my imagination came Robert Hughes. How lucky we were - Australians read and looked and listened as no one born in London or Paris felt they had to - 11th August
 * They've turned Britain into Butlins in their determination to make us enjoy ourselves - The beach volleyball became - lest our concentration falter - a musical - 4th August
 * I mean no disrespect to the uncircumcised, but who'd want to look like that? - Philip Roth gives the hero of ‘The Counterlife’ provocative thoughts on what circumcision denotes - 28th July
 * If you think there's no sex in Jane Austen, you're wrong about love, sex and Austen - Can anyone think it makes 'Pride and Prejudice' more sensual to describe Darcy as 'hot, spicy and all man'? - 21st July
 * Victory is ours, declared the Mujahideen. Today, it's the M6. Tomorrow, the A6144! - I don’t think 17 police cars were too many. If anything, I’d have liked a dozen more, and a helicopter - 14th July
 * Murray let us think the unthinkable – where does that leave us now? - It's hard to think of any other sport where the relationship between player and fan is so close - 9th July
 * 'Shake,' my father would say after a fight. I felt the injustice, but life's a dirty business - How many handshakes do we look back on with bitter regret, wishing we had stood our ground? - 30th June
 * My search for a croissant that matches up to the Platonic ideal - Life gurus tell us we should live in the present. I tell them there’s no such place... - 23rd June
 * My unmissable day out at the Jubilee pageant - Parents conjured children from their pockets and hoisted them onto their shoulders - 9th June
 * How dare you make me choose between Shiraz and life? Actually, I can't decide - I am a wine drinker, slowing down to a less than a bottle a night only at the behest of age - 2nd June
 * Asking for pornography that's life-affirming is like asking for tragedy with a happy ending - Porn that’s good to us by definition ceases to be porn - 26th May
 * Nothing is beyond a man who will take his wife on a date to a restaurant like Oslo Court - Maybe our old view of the PM as out of touch is no longer safe. I am seeing him in a new light - 19th May
 * Men – once you run out of fingers to count your sexual conquests, it's time to stop - What happens in the dark is not for bragging about in the light - 5th May
 * A man's face, like a book's cover, can be enough - Was it John Terry’s reputation that caused him to be sent off? My suspicion is that it was his expression - 28th April
 * Old age is coming, but where are my carers? - Beneath the show of senility, I remain the palpitating boy who never wanted a pension - 21st April
 * Don't get too close to your enemy's enemy - I think I’d go for Galloway – briefly – if I were a woman. Strong, suave, tanned to within an inch of his life - 7th April
 * When did we stop seeing modesty as a virtue? - If there’s one thing a parvenu has to do – otherwise what’s he risen from nowhere to somewhere for? – it’s boast - 31st March
 * Tolerance shouldn't stop us challenging hatred - Baroness Tonge’s sympathy for the Palestinian cause is considered to cancel out the sin of antipathy to others - 3rd March
 * Deliver me from these Kate Middleton clones - You can’t blame the young for not looking like who they are - 25th February
 * Beckham's package leaves a lot to be desired - When it comes to the sexual organs, the only sin is frivolity. I don’t, of course, expect Beckham to agree - 18th February
 * Dickens is proof that humour improves with age - No praise of Dickens is too high, no celebration of his genius excessive - 11th February
 * A question neither I – nor anyone – could answer - It was impossible not to think you were never more than the thickness of one person’s skin away from torment - 4th February
 * A misleading idea of beauty and desire - Men are not aroused by Page 3 girls - 28th January
 * Can't Jews be allowed to remember their past? - In Lithuania – where once even the Nazis had to avert their gaze – swastikas now have legal blessing - 21st January
 * Put down that iPhone and act like a human - Do we really need science to tell us that technology can impair the brain? - 14th January
 * We'll miss the sensuous pleasure of a real book - Being able to carry several thousand books around with you on a Kindle is not to be sneezed at - 7th January



Articles: 2011

 * A passion for trainers that amounts to a threat - For the Chinese, 2011 was the Year of Rabbit.So what was it for the British? - 31st December
 * The near-religious zeal that drives the godless - Richard Dawkins’ use of Hitchens’ illness strikes me as tasteless - 24th December
 * Forget the polar bear. I once faked a kangaroo - Of course TV fakes things – did anyone really suppose otherwise? - 17th December
 * Can we just stop talking about a 'Lost Decade'? - We have survived, and with nobility, hard--Jonni 13:05, 31 December 2011 (EST) times before - 10th December
 * King Lear went mad for less than this hell - How did the simple act of making a purchase become such an ordeal? - 3rd December
 * Pitiless conduct by people devoid of imagination - The popular press stimulates a gross curiosity in us of which we should be ashamed - 26th November
 * The futility of trying to escape one's destiny - Last week the cricket writer Peter Roebuck died - 19th November
 * Sorry, Naomi, we can't dance the world better - 'I too once danced in a ring." The line isn't mine, though I have often felt it belongs to me - 12th November
 * Let's move the tents to Simon Cowell's backyard - Never yet have I shared a view on any subject with a tent person, and yet I agree with the 'Occupiers.' - 5th November
 * We do comic explosiveness our own way - Here's why England has never produced its own Woody Allen - 29th October
 * A gadget is just a gadget - Being iTuned day and night diminishes our humanity. It does not enhance it - 15th October
 * The rouge this artist wears is deceptive - What could be wilder at an art show than a word in favour of niceness? - 8th October
 * A life without cheese is no life at all - Unless it takes the skin off the roof of your mouth, it isn’t Cheddar, in my view - 1st October
 * Remembrance of panforte past - A word about Mantovan cuisine in general: until you get the hang of it, it can disappoint. It is rural and austere, much like the city itself – farm and fortress food - 17th September
 * Wounds of school that never heal - In memory I see those first mornings back as colder and darker than they must have been - 10th September
 * It's over – masculinity of the old school - I grow old, I grow old...I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. And my trousers are not the half of it - 3rd September
 * the worst jobs have their benefits'' - In an essay in praise of idleness, that cadaverous philosopher Bertrand Russell argued "that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work" - 27th August
 * vanity of a public intellectual'' - Starkey’s arrogance was his undoing - 20th August
 * have been a disgusting few years'' - That form of looting known as corporate larceny continues to rage unchecked - 13th August
 * best fiction doesn't need a label'' - The truth is, the best novels will always defy category - 6th August
 * further north, the smarter you are'' - Up north we believe very little that we’re told. Hence the size of our brains - 30th July
 * low by those who think ill of us'' - Since when was sexual circumspection proof of a generous or capacious mind? - 23rd July
 * up a book – and be ready to fight'' - Great writers stake out a battlefield you can’t simply slink away from - 2nd July
 * is the problem, not the drinking'' - Someone who can’t find anything better to do than admire and copy a rock star is a lost soul already - 25th June
 * I want from a city is its sexual aura'' - Barcelona men gripped their women’s necks as they strolled on the Ramblas in an act of erotic possessiveness - 19th June
 * dumb by women's stuff'' - It has been a week for a man of my sort to stay silent - 11th June
 * Nazis failed to grasp about dogs'' - My father's dog Ricky once chewed up my only copy of Mein Kampf and buried the introduction in the back garden - 4th June
 * who need to examine themselves'' - It's not Philip Roth's fault if you can't grasp his genius - 28th May
 * fresh hell is this? A journey by train'' - You'd rather be kidnapped and bundled into the boot of a car than go Virgin - 14th May
 * what stops us being Bin Laden'' - First the nuptials, then the killing. Don't tell me it was just coincidence - 7th May
 * room for a little vulgarity'' - Part of Dickens’s greatness was that he reached strenuous and non-strenuous readers alike - 30th April
 * brainwashed prejudice'' - You can’t expect Ofcom to adjudicate between claims of dramatic truth and truth of any other sort - 23rd April
 * test too far even for a Rabelaisian'' - And then the home test kit from the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme turns up in the post - 9th April
 * Lawrence, forever misunderstood'' - BBC4’s dramatisation of ‘Women in Love’ passes the greatest test. Which is more than can be said for its critics - 2nd April
 * on Coronation Street? No thanks'' - There’s nothing to stop them having a bunch of Hassidim propping up the barat the Rovers Return - 26th March
 * land whose writers understand fortitude'' - Mishima lowers himself into the terribleness of beauty - 19th March
 * quest for a coat, destination unknown'' - It's become compulsive now. If I see a coat I like approaching, I move in close - 12th March
 * you look hard enough Zion is all around'' - What we now see is how opportunistic Arab anti-Zionism has been - 5th March
 * us from the opinions of the young'' - Bliss is it in this dawn to be alive, but to be young is very heaven - 26th February
 * wired to have a relaxing holiday'' - Outside, the waves broke; inside, two adults, tired from travel, hammered at dead computer keys - 19th February
 * love-hate affair with the ordinary bloke'' - We can be prejudiced and aware of limits: we can be pigs and still see that we have gone too far - 29th January
 * dark side is closer than we think'' - Exhilaration can turn to ashes in the beat of a heart - 22nd January
 * is for sin time cannot wipe'' - 'Will these hands ne'er be clean?' cries Lady Macbeth in horror. And the terrible answer is no - 15th January
 * for self-contempt to love darts'' - Lose at darts and you compound ingloriousness with disgrace - 8th January
 * them one day and boo them the next'' - It used to take a while for a hero to become a villain or vice versa - 1st January



Articles: 2010

 * never catch me going on a march'' - The moment people throw billiard balls at police, their argument is invalidated - 11th December
 * better you don't know my secrets'' - Apparently Wikileaks is responsible for leaking 251,287 US embassy secrets - 4th December 2010
 * the Ashes starts, I go to pieces'' - The first ball is bowled and my heart is dancing, but not for joy, not joy - 27th November
 * I'm damned if I'll bleed a radiator'' - A poll has been conducted in which men who want a quiet life admit to not being able to bleed a radiator - 20th November
 * can inspire great art'' - The cliché has it that happiness gives the writer little to work with - 13th November
 * worry is the least of my concerns'' - If the terror threat is lowered, that’s because we’ve lowered it. Worry is part of our genetic inheritance - 6th November
 * about your dignity, Ann?'' - This coming week, if rumours are to be believed, she will be led into Strictly on a horse. Lady Godiva? We shall see - 30th October
 * Rooney I see Coriolanus, engine of war'' - Rooney looks like a man who doesn't know what his grievances are because he has lost the point of himself - 23rd October
 * Booker week'' - I owed it to Uncle Gerry to rejoice in the thing itself. And hope for nothing further - 16th October
 * don't discuss prizes in this column. We try to stay above the fray'' - His relationship with the Man Booker has not always been so cordial, as this Independent article from 2005 reveals... - 14th October
 * end of the pier is too big a loss to bear'' - A pier never feels entirely English. Isn’t that what we love – its foreignness? - 9th October
 * have gone against nature'' - Ed might be just what the country needs. But the country isn’t everything - 2nd October
 * and alone amid the rubble'' - Atheist, me? I can think of a few atheists who'd have words to say about that - 11th September
 * English sound of Hindu bagpipes'' - This music reflected the spirituality of India via the emotionalism of Scotland - 4th September
 * theorists lack imagination'' - So what is it with those who see a conspiracy in the fall of every sparrow? - 28th August
 * rage against educational defeatism'' - 'Edexcel' is itself a barbarism to anyone for whom language has dignity - 21st August
 * that time of the year again, again'' - The return of football is even crueller this year, because it never went away - 14th August
 * use Wagner to test your marriage'' - My wife is motionless in her seat, barely breathing. It’s at this point that I believe she has begun to judge me as an artist - 7th August
 * loved him for the calm he exuded'' - My wife's uncle died. Her only uncle, which made him special, though he was important to us in other ways too - 31st July
 * want retribution, not rehabilitation'' - We no sooner let offenders out than they offend again. I propose a simple solution: keep them in - 24th July
 * and losers in the game of stupidity'' - Now that the World Cup is over, here's a little quiz to keep your competitive juices flowing until the next test or tournament comes along - 17th July
 * life. Choose a job. Choose the future'' - You descend into old age wondering what your life might have been - 10th July
 * and books don't go together'' - Will somebody please explain to me what 'Holiday Reading' is? I'm not asking for recommendations - 3rd July
 * Fawlty Towers experience lives on'' - It confirmed my belief that every hotel in England was a Fawlty Towers at heart - 26th June
 * the culture in our football?'' - I make this prophetic pronouncement with great sadness. We are not going to win the World Cup - 19th June
 * is not always believing'' - Reflections - 12th June
 * doesn't hurt if the sun is out'' - If you have to say the party’s over, you don’t want to be doing it in winter - 29th May
 * human rights are plain wrong'' - The culture of the inviolability of the individual has found a congenial resting place in our schools - 22nd May
 * why the 'elite' are in charge'' - They have power because there aren’t enough people educationally equipped to seize it from them - 15th May
 * days of sorrow and joy – of a sort'' - I voted not to put A in but to keep B out. Was this why men risked their lives? - 8th May
 * morality play for these muddled times'' - 'Bigotblundergate' I've called it. It's a one-act tragical-farcical two-hander - 1st May
 * one-eyed giant nearly stopped me getting home'' - Having a column to write, I went in search of other Englishmen as anxious to escape as I was - 24th April
 * power has left teachers humiliated'' - Teaching has been turned upside down. Ignorance is the arbiter of knowledge - 10th April
 * Israel is being treated like a grown-up'' - Anti-Zionism of the sort that peppers letters pages has much to answer for - 3rd April
 * pillars of our civilisation tumble'' - Money was a temptation for New Labour. What else did the ‘New’ stand for? - 27th March
 * salty tale of the Cornish fishermen'' - Boscastle had three pubs for its 800 souls, with singing in every one - 20th March
 * could learn about TV from the US'' - It seemed dire at first. I would channel hop and get only ads, interminable ads - 13th March
 * to an American university and be instantly promoted to professor'' - Their courteousness can get in the way of your knowing what they think - 6th March
 * civilised, courteous but lifeless place'' - Washington is given over in spirit to the tedium of archiving and administration - 27th February
 * that free enterprise doesn't work'' - Individualism is a fine ideal; it’s only a shame individuals suck -20th February
 * in snowy Washington'' - Queues stretch into the street. It’s not just us who go to pieces in extremity - 13th February
 * may have shown bad judgement...'' - ...but it doesn't make him a liar - 6th February
 * do have their uses'' - I wanted to express my gratitude to someone whose comic gifts I admired - 30th January
 * don't dare to criticise 'real people' – just those in the twittersphere'' - People adore, or ele they abhor - 23rd January
 * liberties or civil protection – which is the more important?'' - When freedom becomes ideological it invariably ends up our jailer - 16th January
 * is more precious than freedom'' - Those who offer to act in freedom’s name should not take that name in vain - 9th January
 * males of 22 should be on a list.'' -If you're a man you don't fly before you're 30, is my proposal - 2nd January



Articles: 2009

 * of contentment don't materialise'' - I fancied one day I’d be sipping Claret while reading Tolstoy in the original - 26th December
 * debase relationships with 'love you''' - It conceals what we truly (madly, deeply) feel, especially from ourselves - 19th December
 * don't believe in the joy of giving'' - This year i'm giving up giving. Whether anyone will notice is another matter - 12th December
 * prejudice be servant to the facts, and not the other way round'' - I am wary of accepting someone is an ‘ardent’ Zionist on the say-so of someone who isn’t - 5th December
 * the Coens were going back to their Jewish roots, they must have lost their way'' - They are now the quintessential unfeeling geniuses of our time - 28th November
 * Griffin looks as if he'd be light on his feet...'' - ... So here's what to do with him - 14th November
 * me laugh but don't be so smug'' - Self-satisfaction is unpardonable. Hence the need to keep a straight face - 31st October
 * standing up for minorities is nothing if it's merely special pleading'' - Can we censure people for saying hateful things in language that is itself hateful? - 24th October
 * only one thing a sense of humour will get you – and that's into trouble'' - As long as you keep making jokes you don’t have to listen to anybody else - 17th October
 * don't need poverty for art to thrive'' - ...but too much privilege could be a bad thing - 10th October
 * is nothing petty about this crime'' - This brutality is the consequence of our failure to teach mutuality and respect - 3rd October
 * doesn't matter if there's a recession or not, because Armageddon is on its way'' - It’s business as before. Only this time with a hint of maniacal defiance- 26th September
 * day of reckoning is getting closer'' - Time is running out - this relaunch may be Mr Brown's last - 5th September
 * won the Ashes, but lost an old enemy'' - Ponting’s puckish Irish banter is the last cry of anti-colonial grievance - 29th August
 * the distant angels sing, plucking a tune on just four strings'' - We laugh at the heroic in away that would be impossible if we did not venerate it - 22nd August
 * pedant's duty to keep battling on'' - What the unlettered populace does with words today the rest of us do tomorrow - 15th August
 * tea with terrorists...'' - It’s the new chitti-chattiness I’m worried about. It isn't always good to talk - 8th August
 * hand-washing won't help'' - My swine flu buddy rings the helpline - they say it sounds like swine flu to them - 1st August
 * could all do with Johnson's chicken feed'' - That throwaway line is fatuous, distasteful, contemptuous and cruel - 18th July
 * never did see my function as supplier of the wherewithal to feed women's neuroses'' - The dull truth is that women like men too much to forgo them - 11th July
 * in search of a new Messiah'' - We seem to be in need of big emotion. Joy or grief, it doesn’t matter - 4th July
 * inch high heels are not erotic'' - I spent my first term’s student grant on stilettos for the girl I loved - 27th June
 * fast, die young – or spend your old age playing canasta with the ladies'' - The latest figures showing that men are 100 times more likely to die of everything than women – and at a quarter of their age, and in double the agony – are all I need - 20th June
 * can't forgive Sugar's appointment'' - In the dismal gloaming, he fantasised about prancing airily like Tony - 13th June
 * is nobility in opting out'' - I walked out of Waiting For Godot at the Theatre Royal last week - 6th June
 * not the uneducated we should blame for our national philistinism'' - Denial of seriousness is the scandal - 30th May
 * food is wonderful eaten in England'' - Regional food is almost invariably peasant food and I am not a peasant - 23rd May
 * a healthy dose of intelligence, sex is just a mechanical process'' - A bit of rough is a fantasy only in the minds of the well educated - 16th May
 * money men were bound to win, but Melvyn showed us how good TV can be'' - Our writer admires how his friend kept the South Bank Show's bean-counters at bay - 10th May
 * letter to an anti-Semite who isn't'' - You give succour to fanaticism. Yours is the sleep of reason - 9th May
 * power of old Austrian-Slavic legends'' - The phrase "Austrian legend of Slavic origin" makes me want to slit my wrists - 2nd May
 * Boyle shouldn't have to curry favour'' - Oh God, she dreamed the dream. She had to, didn't she - 25th April
 * zingers are juicy nightmares'' - One point stands out: lime juice stings a cut finger beyond endurance - 11th April
 * scorn shown to Jacqui Smith's husband is proof of people's hypocrisy'' - I don’t watch blue movies. But then I’ve watched too many to be any longer curious - 4th April
 * a final stand for humankind'' - Those who say we misplace the threat of terror are committing us all to suicide - 28th March
 * is the joy and purpose of art.'' - The novel proper has been losing ground to real life improper for years - 21st March
 * do you do if you've got too much time on your hands? Start a fight'' - The boredom of existence explains our going astray in nine cases out of 10 - 14th March
 * bankers could learn a thing or two from the Victorians – namely honour'' - They had the moral refinement to do away with themselves when the game was up - 7th March
 * has nothing to do with education'' - There is nothing new about hating a clever clogs. We always have - 28th February
 * to the opera and a man with a bald head is always blocking the view'' - Just blown two hundred smackers staring into the back of someone’s head - 21st February
 * see the ‘criticism’ of Israel for what it really is'' - The air has been charred not with devastation but with hatred - 18th February
 * it comes to art and the human condition, keep morality out of it'' - The larger your imagination the fewer feelings you don't understand - 7th February
 * can have too much money'' - Society will always be unjust. But how great can we bear the disparity to be - 31st January
 * your tailoring right, and you can set out to solve the world's problems'' - Too much attention to exterior show a man is trivial; too little and he is a fanatic - 24th January
 * silly lad is not a murderous racist'' - The palace is still no place to acquaint a boy with the ironic locutions of the street - 17th January
 * didn't get Pinter – until it was too late'' - An observer would have picked us for master and acolyte - 10th January
 * Palestinians might be winning the propaganda war, but at what cost?'' - Israel could not have done other than it is doing, but that does not make it right - 3rd January



Articles: 2008

 * does Old Testament love and loss'' - Can you see where the singer got his taste for the eroticism of betrayal? - 27th December 2008
 * never easy buying for a man.'' - I don't doubt it's the question keeping you awake at night. - 20th December 2008
 * talk costs lives'' - So how bad is it going to get? Don't spare me, doctor. I need to know - 13th December 2008
 * terrorism, more blame games'' - To argue Palestine fuelled the massacre in Mumbai is preposterous - 6th December 2008
 * to Cohen I now see the light'' - It’s like a reprimand to people of my temperament. Is he be singing to me? - 29th November 2008
 * lesson of Hitler's deformity'' - So Hitler actually did have only one ball. I call that a pity for history - 22nd November 2008
 * gets the public's fickle nature'' - The judges came to a conclusion cynics and nihilists reached years ago - 15th November 2008
 * cool could become political substance'' - The President-elect manages to link good citizenship to street cred - 8th November 2008
 * Brand winked at me once. And when he winks at you, you stay winked'' - Ross has made a little go a long way. Brand has made a lot go almost nowhere - 1st November 2008
 * God 'probably' doesn't exist. Don't these atheists have any conviction?'' - This is a cowardly opposition to religious sentiment - 25th October 2008
 * like a mirthster, but smart-arsery is not funny'' - Nothing is sacred but not every act of satirical disrespect is funny - 11th October 2008
 * to banking's own circle of hell'' - Make your fortune. Just don’t forget the materials out of which it came - 4th October 2008
 * to be a working man again – if only for the full English breakfast'' - 27th September 2008
 * what is the legacy of the banker's greed? A cynical society – and bad art'' - It has become inconceivable that a person might inhabit a moral or intellectual position for its own sake - 20th September 2008
 * choose between the mind and the flesh? In Italy, you can have both'' - For four days, Mantova is given over to inordinately elegant women who go nowhere without a book - 13th September 2008
 * you reach a certain age, Confucius makes perfect sense'' - Among this philosophy's attractive elements is its insistence that respect be shown to elderly men - 6th September 2008
 * are malevolent, while athletes are obsessed only with themselves'' - Paula Radcliffe is the most boring person in the country. When you ask her how she is, she tells you - 30th August 2008
 * Autumn is coming and I've got the wrong trousers. Giorgio to the rescue'' - 23rd August 2008
 * calm comedy of Simon Gray was all the company you ever needed'' - 16th August 2008 (playwright Simon Gray died 6th August 2008)
 * much to be said for the old ways of teaching. At least they worked'' - How bad is it? Five million of us are leaving school without having mastered basic literacy - 9th August 2008
 * Sitting on a bench in Eastbourne, where else would one want to be? - The English like to moderate life's pleasures, which is why their coastal resorts suit them so well - 2nd August 2008
 * We get the war criminals we deserve - Far worse than Karadzic himself are those who blindly followed him - 26th July 2008
 * Military service, crocheting and ping-pong – that will separate the men from the boys - The findings of the British Crime Survey were published last week. And it's good news - 19th July 2008
 * You can keep your good health and long life. Just give me back my pasta - Better to live a brief life without fear than live to 100 and afraid of every pea that rolls on to our plate - 12th July 2008
 * Stop running. Slow down. And take a good long look – you'll get far more out of art - I find nothing tiresome about standing rapt before a painting and thinking long about what we see - 5th July 2008
 * Watch baggage handlers at work and you too can succumb to luggage rage - I watched someone clearing bags manhandling them as if they had done him a personal injury - 28th June 2008
 * What makes everyone believe that they have an inalienable right to be 'worth it'? - It's possible that I feel squeamish about talent contests because I never won one - 21st June 2008
 * It's the end of civil liberties as we know it – or that's how some people prefer to think - What's been done to us to make us dread every new CCTV camera as we dread a nightmare? - 14th June 2008
 * When ordering a salt beef sandwich, beware the moral minefield that awaits - It's a contradiction of Jewish law: the more you eat kosher, the more of a pig you make yourself look - 7th June 2008
 * If what we watch or read can move us to compassion, it can move us to sadism too - There is an unwillingness to believe that our times are morally or intellectually inferior to any other - 31st May 2008
 * The first step on the road to wisdom is admitting that you don't know anything - It is beyond us to balance fairly the rights of an unborn child against those of the mother - 24th May 2008
 * Rebel too strongly against seriousness and what do you end up with? Boris Johnson - He reminds me of a baby. He has the same wet, pouting lip, the same incorrigible naughtiness - 17th May 2008
 * If there really is a smear campaign to try to silence the critics of Israel, it isn't working - Call those who disagree with you ‘witch-hunters’ often enough and they will see you as one in turn - 10th May 2008
 * No need to be surprised when a house of horrors turns up on a quiet provincial street - The degree to which this story fascinates us proves we know the dungeon is never far away - 3rd May 2008
 * I lay on my sun bed and enjoyed the most perfect reading experience you can imagine - It's so hot out there that if I quit the shade for more than 10 seconds I will grow a melanoma - 26th April 2008
 * Which is more depraved: Nazi role-playing in sex games or the horrors of motor sport? - Better to have had Mr Mosley in his striped pyjamas being flogged outside my window - 5th April 2008
 * If you say you want a revolution, it's obvious you're sitting uncomfortably in economy - So what does that say about those of us who were not swept up by the universal hysteria of 1968? - 29th March 2008
 * The heart has its allegiances, to places as well as people. And a country is both - I think the recent suggestions about introducing oaths of fealty are fatuous, but then again I don't - 22nd March 2008
 * So much more could have been done to liberate people from the confines of class - A funny thing happens to working classes when they read – they stop being working class - 15th March 2008
 * Many are the ways we might feel frightened, embarrassed – or just not at home - Study is meant to make you feel at sea. The self is not a precious entity to be soothed at every turn - 8th March 2008
 * If you think that Prozac works, then it doesn't really matter what the experts say - What scientists never understand is that human beings aren't governed by science - 1st March 2008
 * Why mock the expectation of beauty in art? It is laudable that we want to be impressed - 23rd February 2008
 * Our woefully uncultured leaders no longer have any idea what schools should be doing - Mental torture I call it, making a man use a word like 'creative' when he doesn’t know what it means - 16th February 2008
 * You won't find young people complaining about CCTV – they love being on camera - As we're free, the thing we dread is not invasion of our privacy but its opposite – obscurity - 9th February 2008
 * I don't believe that if Eton was closed down then every school beneath it would improve - Does the fault lie in the social attitudes of those who administer and teach at comprehensives? - 2nd February 2008
 * I go and see a film and can't understand what anyone's saying. And I don't think I am alone - I date the demise of verbal communication to our our rejection of Received Pronunciation - 26th January 2008
 * It's not done to say it, but a book that's 'a good read' is seldom worth reading - 19th January 2008
 * Few human beings can resist the sight of a woman's tears – crocodile or otherwise - Hillary knows what works, and anyone who mistrusts such calculation is too naive to be allowed to vote - 12th January 2008
 * No wonder the public is deranged when the people paid to serve us do such a bad job - Some men take pistols into banks to get what they want. I take my voice. But only once a year - 5th January 2008



News & updates:

 * Howard’s end. Howard Jacobson felt like a complete failure — until he won the Man Booker prize. Now, he worries how long his unexpected happiness can last. Interview, Lynn Barber, The Sunday Times, 26th August 2012



References:


Links:

 * Wikipedia bio