Oscar Wilde’s dramatic talents were no match for the blue-blooded battiness of the Douglases (Independent on Sunday, March 2002) There is a terrible, filthy vice which should strike horror and shame into the hearts of any red-blooded Englishman, and which is closely and intimately associated with an effete 19th-century Anglo-Irish… Read More »Revenge of the Psychocrumpet
It seems my joshing, bantering, rib-poking review for the Independent on Sunday of a British book about Australian sports has not been taken in the manly fashion it was meant Down Under. Au contraire, it appears to have caused outrage and even threatens to break-up the Commonwealth. Philip Knightley, columnist on the main Australian daily the Sydney… Read More »Mark Simpson provokes diplomatic incident Down Under
A touring exhibition of genuine Star Trek gimcracks reminds Mark Simpson of the virile greatness of the original Shatner/Nimoy series/love story – and the p.c. limpness of all the spin-offs (Originally appeared on Salon.com Feb. 26, 2003) The first thing that greets me is Capt. Kirk’s package. Jim’s intergalactic manhood… Read More »Captain Kirk’s Bulging Trousers
Mark Simpson on the search for ‘The North’ (Independent on Sunday, 28 January, 2007) Stuart Maconie is looking for the north. It’s not really so difficult to find, but we’re only a few pages into his new travelogue Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North and he’s already hopelessly lost.… Read More »The Smell of Chip Fat at Teatime
Mark Simpson on the childish-mannish nature of men When I was a boy in the languorous 1970s I looked forward to Christmas not just for the prezzies but the boredom that only cold turkey and another repeat of The Sound of Music could produce. I calculated that the more bored… Read More »Unleash the Geek