J.k. rowling

The interview podcast is a genre immoderately drawn to gimmicks, as the logical space of possible formats is gradually exhausted. The interviewee, quite often themselves a podcaster, might be, for example, invited to noisily eat lunch while nominating their top-five deceased childhood pets. The theory is that fanciful formats encourage the interviewee to open up. Under such conditions, the interview itself can come to seem incidental to the main event, the atmosphere chummy, comfortable, back-scratching, but fundamentally uninterested: you do my interview, I’ll do yours, no real questions asked.

‘I’m sitting here struggling for words and my friend nailed it: “She was our Princess Leia.”’ With those words, Dr Esther Choo, Yale Medical School graduate, holder of an Ivy League English diploma and possessor of 168,000 Twitter followers, memorialized the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A century ago, a citizen of Justice Ginsburg’s stature might have inspired references to the Bible, classical history or the great figures of America’s founding. But in the year 2020, a lifetime of achievement brings no greater honor than to be compared with a Disney-owned property whose action figure you can buy for $10.99.

For better or worse, the rapper, producer and sneaker salesman Kanye West is almost certainly not running for president, as he has claimed. He is instead sidling into the mainstream consciousness just before he drops his latest album. Kanye has had an odd few years. He's come out in support of Donald Trump, made an impassioned religious album, and failed to build a complex of Star Wars-inspired domes for the homeless. A presidential run, then, feels like a natural next move. Ultimately, though, he does not seem to have even filed the necessary paperwork. This has not prevented progressives from being outraged by what they believe is an attempt to split the liberal vote and hand Trump another victory.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the sequel to the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and either J.K. Rowling’s plots are now so labyrinthine she makes your average John le Carré look like Noddy, or I failed to put in sufficient homework, or it’s a plain mess. Whichever, I hadn’t a clue what was happening most of the time. I like the whole Potter industry well enough, but I can’t say I’m a superfan. I don’t even have an opinion on whether Dumbledore is gay or not, which is the surest sign of non-superfandom. But while a film should cater to those in the know, it should also be open to all, surely.

After the England football team beat Tunisia at this summer’s World Cup, they celebrated with a swimming-pool race on inflatable unicorns. Purple hooves, rainbow manes, cutesy eyes, yellow horns like upended Cornetto cones. The millennial unicorn is unrecognisable from the medieval. The proud unicorns of bestiaries and courtly romances have become the twinkling Bambis of Instagram. Search #unicorn (more than nine million posts) and canter into a pastel clearing of long lashes, swishy tails and crystal horns. ‘My favourite colour,’ announces one unicorn, pink, prancing, wide-eyed, ‘is glitter.’ Compare the simpering My Little Unicorn of the emoji palette with the noble creature in the ‘Unicorn Tapestries’ (c.

Scriptwriters love to feast on the lives of children’s authors. The themes tend not to vary: they may have brought happiness to millions of children but their stories — sob — were fertilised by unhappiness. Saving Mr Banks: Mary Poppins author was a bossy shrew because her alcoholic father died young. Miss Potter: Peter Rabbit creator never found love. Finding Neverland: Peter Pan playwright cheered up grieving family. Enid (made for BBC Four): Miss Blyton was a monster traumatised by her upbringing. And so it will presumably go on.

I had planned to review David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s new Channel 4 sitcom Back without constantly referring to their last one Peep Show. Not only did it seem too obvious a way to go; it also felt a bit unfair to compare a deservedly revered programme that ran for 12 years with a single episode that went out on Wednesday. But then I saw that single episode. It’s possible, I suppose, that one day Mitchell and Webb may head in a completely different sitcom direction. Mitchell may not play an uptight, well-meaning loser, or Webb a preening, conscience-free charmer. For now, though, it’s pretty much as you were.