The Critical Commentator

  A Country Cricket Match John Robertson Reid (1851-1926) Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND] ... Alas, with the rise of television, football, Pot Noodles and the internet, people's ability to concentrate on anything longer than a beer commercial declined desperately and, as a result, cricket fell into disrepair. It wasn't anything to do with Sky TV - it was everyone suddenly being too busy to make time for cricket and too dim to understand it. But we're not so busy now, are we? Since lockdown everyone has got into long-form fiction again and massive great TV serials - anything to kill a few hours and hasten the end of this misery. So what better than a sport that can blow away whole weeks?.. And if you're worried about Britain's imperial legacy in a diverse modern world, well, as a cricket fan you need worry no more! The whole point of the game was to give the former colonies something to beat us at. And, by God, they do. Nowhere have the English had to show more post...

 I decided to quit Twitter last month. I haven't been engaging properly with it for a while, only tweeting to point out a podcast or a show I was doing. But still, I'd had enough and tweeted to say as much (yes, I did a leaving tweet, which I admit is a little embarrassing). The Devil Sowing Tares Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651) (attributed to) Photo Credit: Somerville College, University of Oxford [CC BY-NC] I was tired of the incessant comments about me getting work only because of diversity quotas and political correctness, from people who ignore the fact I couldn't care less whether it's talent or initiatives that get me the work: I'm still taking the money... There's no room for nuance. I once tweeted something sarcastic about Doctor Who having a female star, attempting to lampoon the morons who have a problem with it, and it was taken at face value; I was then attacked for having a problem with the Doctor being female. Which I obviously do, but wouldn't ...

 It's late January. The wards and ICUs are overwhelmed, awash with the virus. The patients seem younger, the new variant more virulent. We are drowning, drowning in Covid. The sight of a doctor or nurse breaking down has become unremarkable. Too close, for too long, to too many patients' pain, we have become - just like them - saturated. Behind hospital doors, tucked out of sight, we seem to suffer as one... Patients Waiting to See the Doctor, with Figures Representing Their Fears Rosemary Carson (b. 1962) Wellcome Collection [Public Domain] During the first wave, I knew the public had our backs. This time round, being an NHS doctor makes you a target. For the crime of asserting on social media that Covid is real and deadly, I earn daily abuse from a vitriolic minority. I've been called Hitler, Shipman, Satan and Mengele for insisting on Twitter that our hospitals aren't empty. Last night a charming "Covid sceptic" sent me this: "You are paid to lie and a...

 We learned many vital lessons due to Captain Sir Tom Moore's good works, but the one the Government wants us to take away is that the correct and proper way to fund the Health Service is not the outdated and cumbersome practice of taxation. Instead, it's much fairer and more efficient to get 99-year olds to run round the garden. Head of an Old Woman Percy Bigland (1858-1926) Photo Credit: Walker Art Gallery [CC BY-NC] In years to come, there will be no more bureaucratic national insurance and accountants working out how much each of us has to pay. That will be replaced by lines of the elderly charging round parks, while personal trainers bark: "Don't be a QUITTER, Mavis, you can CRAWL if you have to, we're short of X-ray machines so MOVE IT. It's no wonder they insisted on vaccinating the over-80s first if they're relying on them to fund the NHS for the next ten years. Eventually everything will be funded like this. Rishi Sunak will announce in his budget:...

 ...The revelation that the influencers are relatively self-interested people seems to have shocked their followers, who've apparently been under the impression they've been hanging on the every brand endorsement of a troupe of Mahatma Gandhis. In fact, I actively enjoy the fits of morality by people who would kill to be having a cocktail on a beach, but - failing that - would settle for threatening to kill the person who is having the cocktail on the beach. According to the influencers' long suffering agents, we have not yet flattened the curve of death threats currently being addressed to their clients... I loved the fitness blogger who explained to This Morning that it was "essential travel" for her to fly to Dubai to film her exercise routines, particularly as far as her followers' mental health and inspiration was concerned... It was an even greater amusement to me to learn that a Towie star had been sneakily posting old images of himself in coats and s...

 Lockdown rules have left several people ruing the decision to get their hair done - not least 31 police officers who were revealed to have sat down for a trim while on duty. They now face the prospect of a £200 fine each... Samson and Delilah Pieter Claesz. Soutman (c.1580-1657)  Photo Credit: York Museums Trust [Public Domain] Our efforts to get our hair under control, whether legal or not, can reflect a desire to present an image to the world - possibly driven by vanity - that goes back millennia... "Hair helps you feel good about yourself - there's a reason we talk about good hair days," says Rachel Gibson, a hair history expert. "Washing and styling your hair, or cutting and colouring it, makes you feel a bit more normal, which is something we're all looking for right now...looking put-together helps you feel like you have control over at least one part of your life."... "A visit to the salon has so much meaning for so many and is a part of life th...

According to Oxfam the wealth of the world's 10 richest individuals has risen by £400bn since the start of the pandemic. That sum could apparently vaccinate every adult on Earth, as well as restore to the world's poorest people the income they lost in 2020... It is hard to quarrel with the report's conclusion that current economic policies have enabled "a super-rich elite to amass wealth in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression, while billions of people are struggling to make ends meet. Political economists on both the left and the right are coming to the conclusion that the gap between rich and poor people is destabilising and dangerous to democracy...The world is getting less equal... Vague Oxfam exhortations that we need to "shape more equal societies" are unlikely to get anywhere. Whatever Davos may pretend, the world does not have one government or one tax regime, let alone one ideology... Duty Paid Ralph Hedley (1848-1913) Photo C...

 How ingenious are the British! Like the legendary Inuit people who coined 57 words for snow, we have devised a long list of clever aliases for the stuff that dominates everyday life. Know the ones I mean? Try food poverty. Fuel poverty. Child poverty. Clothing poverty. Transport poverty. Period poverty. These are phrases mouthed in Westminster and plastered across newspapers... But this ever-growing jungle of subcategories obscures the one true problem they have in common. It is poverty: The condition of not having enough money to live your life. When Poverty Enters the Door unknown artist Photo Credit: Worthing Museum and Art Gallery [CC BY-ND] If your only choice of an evening is between skipping dinner or going to sleep in the cold before waking up in the cold, then you are are not carefully selecting between food poverty and fuel poverty, like some expense-account diner havering over the French reds on a wine list. You are simply impoverished. If you are using a sock as a sani...