Robert Taylor

Britain’s class system has always been a load of self-defeating, nonsensical garbage with no obvious purpose. But, remarkably enough, it has just become even more ludicrous. This month, we learned not only that Civil Service internships will be restricted to those from ‘working class’ backgrounds, but that the children of train drivers earning £80,000 a year will qualify, whereas the children of police and prison officers, who earn far less but are apparently ‘middle class’, will not. We seem to have voted in the most class-obsessed yet confused government in history Where that leaves someone whose father is a train driver, but whose mother is a police officer, I have no idea. And I reckon the government doesn’t either.

England won their World Cup qualifier game again last night, this time against Serbia. And, once more, the Wembley reaction was rather muted. England's manager Thomas Tuchel must wonder on earth what he has to do to get the fans going. If seven qualifying wins in a row – with 20 goals scored and none conceded – isn't good enough, then what on earth will be? It was only last month that Tuchel took a shedload of flack when he criticised the Wembley crowd for their noiseless reaction to an effortless 3-0 win over Wales. 'We could have been 5-0 up at half-time,' the manager said: The stadium was silent. We didn’t get any energy back from the stands. We did everything to win. What more can you give in 20 minutes?

Thank heavens for that. English football clubs will no longer have a minute’s silence for tragedies like floods, earthquakes and volcanoes across the other side of the world. Of course, it’s lovely for players and fans to show solidarity with their fellow human beings. But the whole thing has got out of hand, is horribly inconsistent and achieves next to nothing. In September 2023, all English clubs held a minute’s silence in memory of the victims of an earthquake thousands of miles away in North Africa. But following the attacks by Hamas on Israel a month later, which led to the murder of 1,200 people, the FA chose not to light up the Wembley arch in the colours of the Israeli flag, though it did so for Ukraine after the Russian invasion in February 2022.

How are you feeling about the first day of Autumn? If, like me, you get a distant sense of foreboding, then you might suffer from seasonal affected disorder, aptly acronymed SAD, caused by the body’s inability to produce enough serotonin. Surveys suggest up to five million of us, in Britain, are afflicted to some degree – from people whose mood dips a bit, to those who, as the nights draw in, experience anything from anxiety, lethargy and sleeplessness to a general feeling of hopelessness. Sad indeed. If I have a really good Autumn day it’s despite the darkness, not because of it The awful thing is that SAD can kick in as early as late summer, when days start to get noticeably shorter. September 1 is particularly depressing.

Physical courage isn’t my most obvious quality. I hope, if push came to shove, I’d stand up for myself (I certainly would if someone threatened my family) but I generally like to steer clear of trouble. So, what am I, and the rest of us, meant to make of comments by Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Barber, that we should challenge shoplifters rather than just relying on the police? If we don’t do anything, if we just stand and watch, are we, as Barber says, ‘part of the problem’? If we leave it to the police to try to reverse this societal breakdown, we’ll get nowhere Well, some might think it better to be part of the problem than risk a knife to the gut.

It’s only when they get older and start losing that we start loving them. That’s how it was with John McEnroe. ‘Superbrat’ we used to call him in the early 80s, when he was pretty much unbeatable. But come the last years of that decade, and by then the underdog, fans were willing him on. Even if some in the Wimbledon crowd still haven’t forgiven him for posing as some kind of threat to public health they should surely now start appreciating his wonderful sporting talents while they have the chance It’s starting to be the same with an even greater player. The greatest of all time, in fact: Novak Djokovic, who is on Centre Court today.

Apparently, the cricket season has begun. More than that, it’s in full swing and is already six weeks old. But to the casual sports fan, there’s little sign of this. It’s hardly on terrestrial TV. I last saw children playing it in a backyard about a decade ago. I’ve no idea who England are up against this summer. The newspapers relegate it to the inside pages. Many people who once cared no longer do. Newcomers to our shores would have no clue we’re a cricketing nation. What on earth happened? Newcomers to our shores would have no clue we’re a cricketing nation. What on earth happened? Growing up in the 70s and 80s, as I did, cricket was ubiquitous. Ian Botham and Geoffrey Boycott were as famous as their footballing counterparts such as Kevin Keegan and Gary Lineker.

Why must we all be such killjoys? Why so prudish? Why so terrified of history? In the dock this week, accused of crimes against common sense, are the bods at Ofcom, whose ‘guidance’, say broadcasters, means that Carry On films are now under threat. It appears the Carry On films have made the unpardonable error of reflecting the social and cultural norms of their time rather than having the foresight to mirror those of half a century later In fact, niche broadcasters of older films – and where else can you watch a Carry On film these days? – are so terrified of earning Ofcom’s wrath that they feel obliged to butcher the films by removing language and scenes that were once just jolly good seaside fun. It’s like taking the cheese and pickle out of a cheese and pickle sarnie.

I’m in love with snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan – purely in the sporting sense, of course.  I want him to win more than he does himself. He’s in yet another World Championship semi-final, this time at the ludicrous age of 49, but claims not to care whether he triumphs or not. I’ll be sobbing into my beer if he doesn’t. It’s his genius, unpredictability, hilarity and longevity that fascinate Why my obsession? After all, he’s everything I’m not. And I don’t mean just his talent, of which he’s got bucketloads. When he comments on politics, I always disagree. He hints he voted Remain (I didn’t) and campaigns for socialists (I don’t). He jogs for miles every day; I last ran about three decades ago.

The IMF is onto something – a sentence I’ve never uttered before. But that august institution says today’s 70-year-olds not only have the cognitive functions 53-year-olds had back in 2000, but are faster, stronger and more energetic than ever. In other words, 70 isn’t really old anymore. Ergo, says the IMF, a little self-servingly, we should carry on working until at least then, rather than calling it a day at 66, as we do in the UK, and receiving a triple-locked pension that costs a fortune. If there’s one big drag on economic growth, this is it, not just in the UK but around the western world. At around £125 billion a year, state pensions are responsible for a staggering 10 per cent or so of all government expenditure Harsh as it sounds, it makes sense.

What springs to mind when you think of the Falklands? You might imagine the wild, windswept landscape, sparsely populated by the sheep-farming communities that have made the Islands their home for nearly 200 years. Those of my vintage will recall grainy television images of the war in 1982, Margaret Thatcher’s subsequent visit, and grateful islanders speaking to her in accents that sounded like a mixture of West Country and Kiwi.