Mariah carey

Nick Cannon and the remaking of the American family

Nick Cannon is the ultimate baby daddy. How could he not be? The Masked Singer and Wild ’n’ Out host is rich, handsome and has somehow gotten six very hot women pregnant, resulting in twelve — count them, twelve — children. He talks about each of them with nothing but respect and, as far as Cockburn is aware, the women have nothing bad to say about him.  Cannon has transcended the outmoded notion of the nuclear family — and is setting out an alternative high standard for the modern American father. I mean, he made two babies with Mariah Carey at her peak. He is also, in tandem with Elon Musk, solving the problem of plunging Western fertility rates. So Cockburn was surprised to find out that the forty-two-year-old rapper doesn’t pay child support.

nick cannon

Hear the greatest Parsifal of our time sing like a Muppet: Jonas Kaufmann’s Christmas album reviewed

From our UK edition

In classical music circles, Christmas arrives with the overture to Handel’s Messiah. Or so they’ll tell you. In truth, festivities kick off when you hear a ping from your phone and glance down at your inbox: OMG — you have to hear this! There follows, as tonic follows dominant, a link to YouTube and the 2014 Christmas in Vienna Medley — the occasion, still barely fathomable to anyone who believes that we share a common European culture, when a quartet of opera singers in full evening dress, and shimmying on the spot like a vicar at a Sunday School disco, attempted to cover George Michael’s ‘Last Christmas’. But not this year. Oh no.