The appointment of former Labour minister James Purnell as Director of Radio is certainly one in the eye for those who accuse the BBC of being left-wing!

We can expect a lot more of this:

But, of course, it makes perfect sense...

Did the Scots beat the English at Bannockburn? Or was it a case of Normans beating Normans?

Every country, race, religion and individual views the world through a multi-faceted and often self-contradictory prism of myth and legend (and if that doesn't get me into Pseud's Corner, nothing ever will). Not all myths and legends are untrue, of course, and not all myths and legends are harmful to those whose view of reality is coloured by them - but many are both false and harmful.  I suspect many Europhiles of the Islington tendency would cite everything from Londoners battling heroically through the Blitz to the view of the British Empire as an almost unalloyed good which brought law and trade to those lucky enough to be colonised as partially responsible for British voters' "disastrous" decision to "leave Europe". In the US, left-wing historians have spent decades sneering at the myths which have made generations of Americans proud of their country.

The strange, solipsistic world of Jeremy Corbyn... the "nirvana fallacy" revisited

I mentioned an excellent New Statesman article about Jeremy Corbyn and the nirvana fallacy last October - 'The nirvana fallacy, Denis Healey, and "Toy Town Trot" Jeremy Corbyn'. It's been impossible to avoid the old twit on television in recent days, what with the party conference officially marking the end of Labour as an electable force in British politics, and - presumably because he's really dim and mentally rigid -  it seems he has learned absolutely nothing. To recap, the nirvana fallacy is the belief that we always have a binary choice in politics between messy, imperfect reality and the perfect world which exists only in our imagination: once you have rejected the imperfect world and shared your vision of a perfect world, your work is done. Here's how Ian Leslie put it in his  excellent New Statesman article:

Not only is vaping 90% better for your health than smoking - it also turns shameful addiction into sheer, flavourful pleasure

This time last year, I was convinced that any e-cigarette user who vaped anything other than tobacco-flavoured juice from anything other than a device that looked like a cigarette (i.e. a cigalike) was a pretentious ponce. During the past week I've used my JACVapour ego/pen style vaporiser and my chunky Aspire Nautilus box mod to switch between rich, dark custardy flavours from Vapemate and delightfully sweet fruit mixtures such as Bat Juice, Vamp Toes, Blackjack and Pinkman (the best of the lot) from Vampire Vape. I have become a flavour-chaser to such an extent that there are days when I forget that I'm actually pumping nicotine into my system every time I press the button that activates the coil which turns the liquid into vapour (I'm on an 18ml nicotine mixture, which is 2ml below the maximum allowed under EU rules).

The So.Much.Guardian Twitter feed seems to have gone on holiday: this should help prevent withdrawal symptoms

Why not do us all a favour, George, and give up eating altogether?

New editor of Vogue arrives for her first day in the job (h/t: David Vance)...

I'm with Giles Coren when it comes to breast-feeling in public (h/t: Michael Deacon)...

What eight years in the White House does to a man - and could do to a woman...

Even Barack Obama - who seems to have spent much of his presidency either playing golf or chumming around with his Hollywood pals - looks like he's put on about 25 years in the seven years between the start of 1999 and January 2016:

Lots of talk today about cutting the number of peers as well as MPs: I know - what about the "last in, first out" principle!

Because, let's face it...

Crybaby American football players refusing to stand for the US national anthem need a lesson in true class from Usain Bolt

Ungrateful wretch

The protests started with the San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who apparently wants to complain about racial inequality, which has evidently forced him and an enormous number of other black athletes to become unfeasibly rich and famous. I'm sure we all feel their pain and sympathise with how they've suffered under the jackboot of American racism.

At last, the stain on my reputation has been erased - I did not write "Eat Them Alive": Evelyn Louise Nace did!

I was sitting at my BBC desk one afternoon about 15 years ago when a smirking colleague pointed out that my long-retired writing alter-ego, Nick Sharman, was the subject of some heated online speculation. Puzzled, I went to the relevant horror/fantasy Trash City fansite and there found myself brazenly accused of having been responsible for writing a 1970s horror novel entitled Eat Them Alive, under the pseudonym Pierce Nace. I didn't in the least mind being accused of writing an incredibly violent pulp horror novel, because that's what I used to do for a living, and, to be fair to the rumour-mongers, the mysterious Pierce Nace had been published by New English LIbrary, the same company that published most of my books at that time.  But I did object to being accused of writing Eat Them Alive because - even by pulp horror standards - it is reputed to be execrable.  Here's a sample of the dialogue:

It's 86°F in West London: getting into your car be like...

via GIPHY

I agree with Will Ferrell:

Action Movie Kid - and all my son got was a visit to a couple of CBBC events and a lousy trip to my office!

In case you haven't seen this brilliant YouTube video (50 million page views so far), this is what you get if Dad's a Hollywood special effects wizzard:

Volume 2's good as well:

There really is no point in interviewing Nicola Sturgeon on TV ever again - just show this video...

Is it safe to watch TV news again? I had to switch off because of all those middle-aged blonde women getting shrieky about grammar schools!

One of the benefits of one's offspring finishing university and entering the wonderful world of paid employment is that you no longer have to pay any attention to news stories about education. Private school fees going through the roof? GCSE grades plummeting? Teachers striking because 14 weeks paid leave just isn't enough? University tuition fees heading for outer space? Your kid's arts degree won't get them a decent job? Meh. 

Farewell, Prince Buster - you've taken that final One Step Beyond. I wonder if you've met up with Stinky Pommells yet?

I can't tell you how great Prince Buster records sounded on my parents' enormous, bass-heavy 1950s Blaupunkt radiogram:

As for the mysterious Stinky Pommells, he puts in an appearance on this elegiac number:

If Eddie Izzard actually wants to win a political campaign, why does he insist on wearing make-up and dressing in women's clothes?

This was the former comedian, Eddie Izzard (now a marathon runner and political activist), on yesterday's sparsely-attended March for Europe in Central London:

Who exactly was he trying to win over to the cause of Britain remaining in the EU?...

I've had one or two accidents with my vaping equipment, but I've managed to avoid the one "reported" in the Sunday Sport. So far.

Should we declare "being an actor" a mental illness - or just make it an arrestable offence? In Geena Davis's case, probably both

As you read the opening paragraphs from this bizarre story on the excellent Heat Street site, try to keep in mind that IT IS NOT A PARODY! This is an actual example of just how demented Hollywood social justice warriors now are:

Hollywood actress Geena Davis is pioneering software that will monitor and rate films and TV show for their diversity content.

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media is collaborating with Google and the University of Southern California School of Engineering to screen how much women and people of color are represented on film. The new software, which is being launched later this month, will scan content and scripts to supply diversity scores for movies and TV shows...

Map of the world's 20 most violent cities - maybe Baltimore and St. Louis should consider voting Republican for a change?

Here are the statistics for the top 50 most violent cities (in case you were wondering where Detroit and Kingston, Jamaica had got to):

Labour MP Keith Vaz? Male prostitutes and drugs? This really is "Schadenfreude Sunday"

Finally, they've got the bugger!