Freddie mercury

Friday

Bill Kauffman

The pros and cons of losing my hearing

Ah, the indignities of age. Over the past year I’ve suffered significant hearing loss. “Huh?” has become my favorite word and I’ve developed a strange new respect for the loonies who hear voices. Aspiring to stoicism, I informed Lucine, my wife, “When I hit 60 I figured that I was entering a stage in which the physical setbacks, some quite unexpected, would mount. So I told myself that I could either whine about it or I could accept all this with grace and good humor.” Lucine didn’t miss a beat. “Then why have you chosen to whine?” Thanks, dear! I mean no disrespect to the late Freddie Mercury when I say ‘We Will Rock You’ sounds better muffled I confess to the occasional maudlin moment.

Monday

Rob Crossan

Admit it: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is terrible

From our UK edition

Queen’s ascendency began at around the same time as the first residents were moving their Axminster carpets and Party Sevens into Tower Hamlets’ Robin Hood Gardens, the Smithson-designed Brutalist estate that would go on to become a typical example of how post-war ‘streets in the sky’ concepts were almost always doomed to fail. Five decades on, just one small section of Robin Hood Gardens has survived for posterity. It’s been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum to, presumably, warn future generations of what can happen to a neighbourhood when you combine too much cheap concrete with not enough public consultation. Thanks to Freddie Mercury and co., one solitary example of the very worst excesses of overblown 1970s musical bad ideas persists, too.

Thursday

Dominic Green

The height of hypocrisy: why on earth is Bohemian Rhapsody up for a Golden Globe?

There has never been a better time than this to be a dwarf in show business. For years, thespians of diminutive stature were obliged to eke out the 11 months between pantomime engagements with humiliating side gigs like working at ‘dwarf-throwing’ bars and performing at bachelor parties. Now, however, the public’s apparently infinite appetite for idiotic medieval fluff has made our low-wattage era a golden age for the height-impaired performer. Take a bow, Peter Dinklage for Game of Thrones, and Warwick Davis for the Harry Potter franchise. The nominations for the Golden Globes were announced today. There should have been more dwarves on screen this year, and perhaps as many as seven in one film. I speak, of course, of Bohemian Rhapsody, the Freddie Mercury biopic.

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