Michael Farr

Michael Farr is the author of a number of books on Tintin and Hergé, including Tintin, The Complete Companion.

Christmas Special 2024 with Rod Liddle, Lionel Shriver, Matthew Parris and Mary Wakefield

From our UK edition

71 min listen

Welcome to a special festive episode of The Edition podcast, where we will be taking you through the pages of The Spectator’s Christmas triple issue. Up first: our review of the year – and what a year it has been. At the start of 2024, the outcome of the US election looked very different, the UK had a different Prime Minister, and The Spectator had a different editor! Luckily, The Spectator’s regular columnists are on hand to declare what they got right – and wrong – throughout the year, and whether they’re optimistic for 2025. Rod Liddle, Matthew Parris, Mary Wakefield and Lionel Shriver take us through everything from Trump to trans (03:24).

The prescient politics of Tintin

From our UK edition

Georges Remi, better known as Hergé, the creator of Tintin, was a failed journalist. His first job after leaving school was on a Brussels newspaper, Le Vingtième Siècle, but boringly in the subscriptions department. His mind was set on becoming a top foreign correspondent like some of the leading names of the 1920s. Having failed to join the ranks of renowned reporters, Hergé had created one in Tintin He really had started on the bottom rung, for subscriptions were located in the basement of the newspaper building. At every opportunity he would migrate upstairs, to the busy newsroom and especially to the cuttings library, where he discovered the world at his fingertips.