Archive for Aversions

This article was published as ‘Take this man off the telly’ on 2 July 2003. It put an immediate end to my never more than fading career as an occasional television presenter. I think it raises necessary questions about the exercise of corporate power in the BBC.

On This England, revealing that this ‘heritage’ quarterly which favours cottages, steam engines, choirboys and old shepherd’s smocks, also has a toxic undercurrent connecting it with the far right. Published in the Guardian, 18 August 1993.

The Modern Review was not just a magazine devoted to the ‘posh pop’ view of culture. It was a publicity machine that served to launch a number of thrusting young commentators, including its editor, Toby Young, into mainstream newspapers. Despite its modest print run, and its very short life, this ephemeral apparatus is still feted by commentators such as Bryan Appleyard for having put ‘culture’ on the map. I didn’t see it that way, and still don’t.

Published in the Guardian, 9 July 1992, p. 25.