Julie Burchill is a writer living in Brighton. Her Substack is julieburchill.substack.com.
I’ve long loathed the idea of the ‘National Treasure’. Even typing the words made my eyes briefly cross with extreme crossness. You know the type, they are wheeled out every Christmas as we huddle around the television. Though they can be anything from actors to zoologists, they will have one loathsome character trait in common;
The phrase ‘the silly led by the sinister’ was originally used by the late, singularly great Christopher Hitchens to describe the ‘Not In My Name’ anti-war coalition of the early 2000s. But in the spirit of the ‘if you’re going to steal, steal from the best’ quote generally attributed to Pablo Picasso, I’ve used it
As both of the great Spectator writers Madeline Grant and Gareth Roberts have pointed out here recently, the element of farce in British politics is notable as never before. Miss Grant opined that ‘It is genuinely astonishing that Rachel Reeves isn’t accompanied by the Benny Hill theme at all time… a shambles, but then which
Though Rebecca Culley is obviously a wrong ’un – having stolen £90,000 from her dear old gramps while pretending to care for him and only spend a minimum of his cash on ‘bits and bobs’ – I couldn’t help feeling a flash of admiration for her. When she was caught bang to rights, she diagnosed
The past few weeks has seen the pleasing spectacle of beautiful female film stars (Sydney Sweeney, Keira Knightley – even the previous Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer Jennifer Lawrence, who once said that an orange victory would be ‘the end of the world’) refusing to toe the accepted Hollywood line on politics, be it by not kowtowing
There’s not one damn thing I like about New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani. I don’t like his politics, his religion, his flagrantly daft promises. And I absolutely hate the fact that – while not my type – he is, objectively, extremely good-looking. Aren’t there any politicians I like who look good? Is it just me,
There was a time when, whenever the gossip mags wrote about Jennifer Aniston, they’d always preface her name with ‘Sad’. Sad Jen Aniston – it became one of those three-part names, like Sarah Jessica Parker or Sarah Michelle Gellar, only condescending rather than smug. For someone who was allegedly one of the most desirable women
We’re woefully resigned to the strange situation whereby if an alien landed, they’d believe that being famous was hereditary, like being royal. But when I looked at the Wikipedia page of Louis Theroux, I almost fell out of my wheelchair chuckling. Not only is he the son of the ‘noted travel writer and novelist’ Paul
I thought that maybe being in a wheelchair would stop my louche lunching ways, but somewhat to my own surprise (though not that of my mates, I’d wager), this isn’t the case. ‘You push – I’ll pay!’ has become my battle cry. But as I am wheeled about at this time of year, a pucker
Reading about the break-up of the 19-year marriage of Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, I was interested in some comments from our old mate ‘A. Source’ about the possible cause. According to the Sun: ‘Keith put a brave face on Nicole’s raunchy screen roles and all the comments she’d make about her sexuality. But he didn’t
I’m of the opinion that an overriding interest in ‘porn’ of any kind (I love the way we use the affectionate diminutive about something which ruins so many lives – like calling him ‘Fred’ West) isn’t especially good for the long-term happiness of people. But of course some sorts are worse than others. At the top, you’d
When I invented the term ‘cry bully’ in this very magazine ten years ago, I had no idea how much bigger both theory and practice could get. It already seemed to have reached such a tipping point that surely ‘The Grown-ups in the Room’ of the time, or subsequently, would put a tin lid on
‘I was born to play Lady Bracknell,’ Stephen Fry swanked recently, in an interview to mark a new production of The Importance of Being Earnest, running until January. I can’t be the only one to greet the idea of another round of Fry interviews with a desire to go to bed and not come out
There’s was so much to loathe and laugh at in Peter Mandelson’s contribution to Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘birthday book’ (which inadvertently has turned into more of a ‘burn book’). But the words ‘yum yum’ were, for me, in a league of their own. Whatever they were referring to – it could have been the peachy posterior of
Call him a tech bro’, a hustler or even – hiss! – a Starmerite. But my word, I’m keen on my MP – and recently promoted business secretary – Peter Kyle, the Honourable Member for Hove and Portslade. That doesn’t mean I voted for him last time; I wasn’t going to assist Robbie the Robot
When I was told that a newspaper had asked someone to write my obituary, my first instinct was excitement. I’m not easily offended and I’ve always been an attention-seeker. Once, when I was fat, a magazine printed a photograph of Jabba the Hutt and said it was me. I cut it out and pinned it
The flat in Hove which Angela Rayner infamously purchased is literally two streets and five minutes’ walk from my place, if I could walk. When I was planning to buy an apartment shortly into the new century, I looked at one in that street and thought: ‘Whoah – that’s a bit steep!’ I’d just sold
It’s strange to think that the British people were once addressed as adults by those who governed them. In theory, this shouldn’t have been the case; in previous times, there was more social rigidity and more class deference. But everyone from weather forecasters to prime ministers somehow resisted the temptation, until relatively recently, to speak
I’m not awfully keen on family members of famous people putting themselves in the picture; nepo babies are the worst, the equivalent of Japanese knotweed when it comes to the landscape of modern popular culture. But pushy parents are annoying too: Stanley Johnson and the wittering senior Whitehall jumping on the bandwagon when they should
Seeing those photographs of Angela Rayner on Hove beach in broad daylight drinking a vast glass of rosé (‘day wine’ as my lot call it) I felt a rare flash of FOMO. I met a lot of politicians when I worked as a political columnist for the Mail on Sunday in my twenties, and I’ve
