The Critical Commentator

  The annual UK supplement market is worth £3.6 billion, more than £50 per person,    and most of us have a similar collection of pills which, while not, clinically approved drugs, promise that illusive modern nirvana: "wellness". But Van Tulleken, [Medical Doctor and honorary associate professor at University College London] having interrogated the evidence and witnessed how they are produced for his new book, Make Me Well, believes we're all wasting our money... "Manufacturers," he says, seize upon research that shows feeding collagen to mice stimulates collagen production in their own skin. "Yet when you remove studies that are paid for by the industry, the effect vanishes."...  Van Tulleken,  48, and his identical twin brother, Chris, have spent much of their careers debunking fashionable ideas. In their BBC What's Up Doc? podcast they argue that fears about microplastics are overstated, that we don't need eight hours' sleep a night or...

  Real ale is a traditional draught cask beer, a "living" product that is produced and stored in its cask. It differs from a cold, fizzy lager, in which the yeast is killed and carbon dioxide is added. Real ale contains live yeast so it continues fermenting until it is served. Outside the Devonshire pub in Soho, central London, there is an ever-present horde of drinkers downing pints of Guinness, a stout made by the multinational company Diageo. But the landlord and co-owner Oisin Rogers says: "Real ale is all I drink." "It is a properly handmade product," says Rogers, "produced in exactly the same way it has been for centuries. It has never been industrialised like some of the other drinks that are for sale in bars in London... Tom Stainer, Camra's [Campaign for Real Ale] chief executive says independent breweries are facing unfair competition from multinationals. If you walk into a pub on the high street, you are often confronted  with the same ...

  Whatever else it is, Prince Harry's proposed return is a gripping story to tell around the smouldering national campfire. Animals live in the moment but human beings need narrative: gossip, myth, parable, legends. Stories can be inspiring or malicious, sacred or profane, downright dirty or innocently funny but we need them. The problem and pleasure lies in  embroidering: inflating villains, weeping for victims, adjusting the plot... No New s Thomas Sword Good ( 1789-1872) Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND] So all weekend millions gasped at the suddenly reanimated tale of a discontented prince and his wife: as twisty as an 18th century picaresque only posher and unsettlingly subversive to a functioning monarchy. They fled, hurling resentment at fatherland and family, made big money and friends and lost some of both. They gathered sympathetic admirers, angry opponents and gleeful mockery. They waged legal battles and lost the biggest, narrated a new family story and served it on...

 MPs have been accused of failing to learn their lesson over freebies after taking almost £400,000 of hospitality to concerts and sporting events this year... Despite the outcry in 2024 over Keir Starmer accepting football tickets and clothing, MPs appear to have been declaring hospitality this year on a greater scale than previously seen. The most recent disclosures include tickets worth £858 to a Harry Styles concert at Wembley from PRS for Music, an industry group, which was accepted by Powell, Labour's deputy leader and now education secretary. Rave Punk Gal Jaksta Image Credit:  Maarten Roes Franken [CC BY-ND] Wes Streeting, now defence secretary, accepted tickets to the Chelsea flower show worth £1,839 from Lloyds Banking Group. Haigh, who is Andy Burnham's deputy, accepted a £1,314 ticket to the Ivor Novello awards, while Annaliese Midgley, now chief whip, enjoyed Brit awards hospitality for two worth £3,432, hospitality at Cheltenham festival worth £350 from the bettin...

  Ordinary has become an insult in the 21st century. [ Goodness, I didn't know that. ] No one aspires to be average, that sounds mediocre and dull: they want to excel. [ So that's what I must be then - mediocre and dull .] Everyone now dreams of being extraordinary, talented, gifted, different, unique in their own way. [ I don't really remember my dreams .] It's all about "main character energy" as Gen Z. calls it.  Nothing less, we have become convinced, will make us feel contented and fulfilled [ Are Gen Z Chinese? Don't they believe in energy flow when using holistic medicine?] We need to max our lives in every way, push ourselves to the limit, perfect our daily routines and sleep schedules, curate our existence and compete to win. [ This sounds very complicated to me. Is there to be any time for the craic and banter? The pub? Reading? Walking? No time to stop and stare?] A Portrait with Books Madge Gill (1882-1961) Photo Credit: London Borough of Newha...

  According to his former economic adviser, Gary Cohen, "Trump won't read anything - not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers, nothing." Instead he gets most of his news from screens: Fox News and Truth Social are favourites. This preference explains a lot about the chaos of our present politics. The president is hardly alone in his allergy to the written word. Reading is in decline everywhere. Most widely cited are a series of reports suggesting that students from universities  are increasingly unable to read the books their lecturers assign to them. According to one professor, his students were "intimidated by anything over ten pages." And this is more than merely the sort of thing professors always said about their students... The Inattentive Reader Henri Matisse (1869-1954) Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC ND] A study of the leisure habits of nearly a quarter of a million Americans found that the number who spent time reading on a typical day (including n...