Jeremy Paxman Departs The Jeremy Paxman Show (Newsnight)

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ast week the ‘great lion of BBC journalism’ and ‘the scourge of politicians’ called it a day after 25 years in the saddle as the principle Newsnight anchorman. Of course there was no thanksgiving, tears or even a wobbly lip. The ‘great lion’ did, however, agree to mark his departure by partaking in some minor frivolities, going on a bike ride with Boris and presenting his favourite news item – the weather. Newsnight will certainly be weakened by his departure; it might as well have been called The Jeremy Paxman Show. Fortunately, the ‘scourge of politicians’ won’t disappear entirely as his enthusiasm for reading out tricky questions to bright young things and making high pitched utterances of disdain remains undiminished. 

As a Newsnight anchor I shall miss him, more as an entertainer than as an informer. He had charisma and star quality and was a cut above most of his contemporaries. In a programming era increasingly driven by ‘accessibility’ he was a welcome intellectual bulwark. Indeed, if Jeremy Paxman presents a programme, you know that it comes with a triple A intellectual rating. The questions on University Challenge are as difficult as they ever were.

Italia ’90: Glorious Failure

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t’s a little odd, I know, but in the build up to the World Cup in the Youtube age, I watch it again, and again, and again: the montage clip of England’s travails at Italia ’90 accompanied by Nessun Dorma* belted out by Luciano Pavarotti. Why do I do it? Is there nothing more to it than having a particular regard for Luciano’s stirring rendition? Do I like watching grown men cry? Am I just weird?**

Urbane Londoners: UKIP welcomes your sneering

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mong urbane Londoners, admitting to a fondness for UKIP and its man of the moment* Nigel Farage is about as bad as confessing never to have watched Mad Men and The Killing. Maybe that’s a touch extreme; perhaps a better analogy would be about as distasteful as drinking blue top milk or serving up a Dairylea Dunker as a canapé?

Despite making inroads across much of the UK in the Local and European elections last week – Nigel was particularly excited** by UKIP’s gains in Wales – UKIP failed to convince a large chunk of London voters of its merits. And why was this? Well, one reason for UKIP’s London failure, as acceded by Suzanne Evans, UKIP’s communities spokesperson, when interviewed on Radio 4 last week, was UKIP’s difficulty in appealing to the ‘cultured, educated, and young’, of which it would seem London is absolutely packed to the rafters.

Sir Alex Ferguson's Dying Glory

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ike many across the country I'm not particularly fond of Sir Alex Ferguson. This wasn't always the case. Whilst I've never been particularly fond of his feverish chewing of Wrigley's Extras; his lack of graciousness in defeat; and the sense I have that his views of family and loyalty are not that far removed from Don Corleone, I used to be able to gloss over these traits and focus on the fact that he had an overwhelmingly positive impact on English football in the mid- to late-1990s. I saw him as a footballing visionary who challenged conventional wisdom (well, Alan Hansen's dull-witted assertion: one of many) that 'you could not win anything with kids' and helped bring English football clubs back to the vanguard of European club football. I was also captivated by his Manchester United team of the late 1990s and early 2000s which played with a swashbuckling majesty that was beautiful to watch and made the hair on the back of my neck stand up on those wonderful Wednesday Champions League nights.

Horrid Facebook Updates

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f Facebook is a reflection of its creator Mark Zuckerberg then it is a medium that one should treat with caution, trepidation and ideally circumvent. Indeed, if the murmurings and tittle-tattle about Zuckerberg (or the despotic and psychopathic Gaius Caligula as I like to imagine him given his uncanny resemblance to the young Caligula in 'I, Claudius' and his controlling behaviour in the Facebook float) are to be believed then Facebook, like its creator, is vain, self-aggrandising, mean and ultimately self-deluding. Perhaps that was a touch sensationalist of me as Facebook is not without benefits, although unlike Zuckerberg I don't quite view it as a harbinger of democracy, but hopefully it conveyed my belief that it does not on the whole accentuate the positive traits of humanity.

Now although Facebook has given an outlet for the vain, the bores, the needy, the dull and those lacking self-awareness, I have accepted the medium for what it is and realised that from a sociological and psychoanalytical bent, it is quite fascinating. I even feel a level of sympathy – I know that this is pretty patronising – for those who feel that they have to let people know that they are baking a cake or going on a 10k* run. Perhaps such individuals feel that if they don't update their Facebook statuses on a regular basis that they will cease to exist: I update my Facebook status therefore I am.

We're All Morally Repugnant

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ntil very recently the sardonic, Bob Monkhousian Jimmy Carr didn't pay any tax. This happy state of affairs for Mr Carr would no doubt have continued but for our very own Prime Minister's heroic* intervention when on telly, visibly outraged, he lambasted Mr Carr as 'morally repugnant' for paying less tax than a toilet attendant.** It worked a treat, as the next day (possibly the day after), Mr Carr surfaced from his King Midas-like opulence with his countenance markedly transformed: earnestness had replaced sardonicism. Quite the transformation. So full of contrition was Mr Carr that he announced that he had made an 'error of judgement', offered to slip his father a few quid for allowing him  free bed and board in his impecunious early days as a comedian and, most dramatically of all, promised to exit K2*** (the tax scheme, not the second highest mountain on Earth). We'll probably never know for certain why Mr Carr voluntarily agreed to become a 50% (soon to be 45%) income tax payer, but someone with a placid mind, like myself, might conclude that the unwanted, negative publicity – exposing Mr Carr as a horrible hypocrite – might impact detrimentally upon his gig sales and television appearances. Cynical, perhaps even sardonic of me, I know.

Dastardly Internships

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oor old Nick Clegg. He probably had hoped that if he was ever at the heart of the machinations of government that he would have been the person associated with and credited for spearheading some weighty initiatives. A root and branch reform of the welfare system perhaps? Overthrowing a political despot maybe? What about standing up against a rise in university tuition fees (too difficult)?

Instead, the Deputy PM during his 19 months in office has been the principle advocate of what can hardly be described as two of the most pressing issues of our time: the Alternative Vote and the unfairness of many internships today. This is admittedly a bit unfair as Clegg has been a key man in the government's laudable commitment to raise the income tax personal allowance threshold to £10,000 by the end of the Coalition's term in Parliament: an integral part of making work pay.

Royal Hysteria

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ccording to the BBC (the organisation whom you give £145.50 a year), 24.5 million people in the UK watched Wills and Kate's big day in its entirety and 34 million in part.

These statistics, and the concomitant national fervour, came as something of a surprise to me as before the Royal Wedding my friends and colleagues had shown (I should say feigned) as much interest in the occasion as the Alternative Vote. 'Would you watch the Royal Wedding with Auntie I asked?'  The overwhelming response was 'I couldn't care less' and 'day off work – whoop, whoop!' Not one person bellowed out 'God Save the Queen' or even offered the more moderate response of 'I'll probably watch it on telly'. Clearly a few people in my YouGov-esque poll of about 50 were either telling a few porkies, as admitting to Royalist sympathies is not uber-hip, or severely underestimated their British propensity for being a great big nosy parker.

Thankfully there are some who are not as credulous as me (well done India Knight) who suspected that the national urge to snoop, stick their beak in and pry into the lives of the rich and famous would override any trendy aloofness. Just look at the popularity of celebrity lifestyle magazines and television programmes like 'Come Dine With Me': we can't get enough of this sort of thing.

The Pocket-Handerkerchief

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mbarking on his perilous journey to the Lonely Mountain with thirteen dwarves and a wizard with a big beard called Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo Baggins was struck by the terrible realisation that he had left his “pocket-handkerchief behind”. Although I have never undertaken such a quest myself, I can entirely empathise with dear Bilbo's predicament. On occasions I too have committed this act of gross absent-mindedness, leaving me with the unpleasant sensation of exposure and, for want of a better word, nakedness throughout the day.

In truth I have 'sexed up' my feelings of exposure and nakedness somewhat, but I do, nevertheless, regard a pocket-handkerchief as an essential part of day-to-day regalia* which has unfortunately been lost. It was an essential item for my grandparents’ generation, with multiple functions, but is now mocked and ridiculed marking its owner as – dare I say it – 'behind the times' and lacking in personal hygiene. Admittedly, my introduction to the pocket-handkerchief was my grandfather blowing his nose in a not particularly edifying manner into an unattractive brown raggedy garment, so I suppose that this widely held perception is not wholly unjustifiable. However, don't let my grandfather put you off. A pocket-handkerchief confers multiple benefits upon its user and environs.

The Joy of Giving

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et's be candid here. The vast bulk of humanity (myself included) rarely experience the no doubt pleasant sensation of lightening our purse strings to help those less fortunate than ourselves. I confess that during the working week I have passed the Big Issue man outside 'Paradise' Circus, Birmingham for over a year now on my stagger to and my scuttle back from the office without ever crossing his palm with silver (I should say copper and nickel). On occasions I have felt a twinge of guilt about this; probably more than Jeremy Clarkson at any rate.

Not only do my uncharitable actions and those of my fellow man fail to alleviate the suffering of many (yes I know that despotic regimes, poor personal choices, the common agricultural policy, etc. are significant factors too), but they have spawned the celebrity love-in that is Comic Relief. I find it incredibly dispiriting to think that the only way of encouraging people to help the needy is for Christopher Moyles to do a 52-hour radio marathon (I can hear cries of 'what a lege*' reverberating around the United Kingdom) and Fearne Cotton wearing a peculiar bikini/swimsuit combination on television – oh er.

Strictly No Dancing Please

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he title of this piece is slightly misleading. I actually quite enjoy cutting a rug, getting jiggy with it and busting a groove. My dancing exploits have taken me from the halls of Vodka Revolutions to my friend Tom's sitting room. I haven't mastered ballroom, and never will, but I have perfected a forward defensive cricket drive to “I don't like cricket” by 10cc.

What gets my goat is the sight of 14 'profound' individuals who earn their money from the entertainment industry, and one from railing against the perils of social liberalism, cavorting across our screens pretty much every day of the week on BBC 1 or 2 from the end of the British summer to Christmas. My stomach lurched and an overwhelming sense of impending doom coursed through my body when the BBC cranked up its 'Strictly' (as some people call it with no hint of irony whatsoever) advertising campaign. What a fantastic use of public money in a time of economic austerity, or in a time of economic boom for that matter.