The Electric Pitchfork

  The problem with New Year’s Eve is the pressure to have fun, to feel amazing about everything, to go against your better nature and do things you wouldn’t normally do. It’s the worst night of the year, for example, to go to a nightclub. People who haven’t set foot in one for the other 364 days troop out in droves, meaning you will probably be seeing in the new year queueing in the freezing cold as a large man in a hi-vis jacket shouts at you to move behind the metal barrier. Then there is the cottage-in-the-country option, which is also fraught with danger. Either somebody makes a disastrous attempt to get sexual and ends up crying about how lonely they’ve been since their divorce, or the evening is so crushingly dull that going to bed at half past 12 actually comes as a blessed relief. Better to hold, or better still go to, a house party where you can eat and drink far too much, plan incredible things for 2016, and enjoy great music from the past five de...

Rooted In Virtual Worlds   Teens spend a 'mind-boggling' 9 hours a day using media, report says

Think hard before you hit the throttle in the camber gambler   Jeremy Clarkson Published: 20 December 2015 IN MY most recent review of the Nissan GT-R I said it was pretty much perfect in every way and declared at the end that it’s not a five-star car. It’s the five-star car. I stand by that. If you want to go fast, in any weather, on any road, there is simply nothing else that even gets close. You know the space shuttle. The pictures would suggest that it lumbered off the launchpad as though it were getting out of bed after a heavy night, but nothing could be further from the truth. When the restraining bolts were released and those 37m-horsepower engines could do their thing, it exploded upwards so vigorously that it was doing 120mph before its tail had cleared the gantry. Anyone familiar with the Nissan GT-R would call that “a bit pedestrian”. Maybe on a sweeping ribbon of tarmac in the Scottish Highlands on a dry, hot, sticky day the McLaren P1 cou...

the BBC has to make cuts, but why always sport?    The whittling down of the sport portfolio was perhaps inevitable in a more competitive age, but the corporation must not overlook how important iconic sporting moments are to licence fee payer.   T he BBC director general Tony Hall’s plan to save £30m a year by further shaving the sports budget to account for a squeeze in the licence fee does not come as a surprise. But to many it seems like a further whittling of a pretty slender stick. The rhetoric is familiar and is perhaps best summarised as the “or the puppy gets it” argument. But the BBC must surely be running out of sports to dangle over the edge. The fact that we are now down to discussing whether the BBC can save a few pence here and there by ditching snooker and darts shows how parlous the situation has become. BBC sport and online news to be cut as Red Button services face axe ...

Downfall Last week the ‘Special One’ was sacked as Chelsea manager. Alastair Campbell, who interviewed Jose Mourinho for his book on winners, explains how he lost the confidence of his players — and then his boss Original Articile Link   Alastair Campbell Published: 20 December 2015 THIS will be a horrible weekend for Jose Mourinho. That horror is not merely explained by the obvious; he will by now have begun to absorb the humiliation of failure and the shame of being sacked after the most calamitous period of an otherwise brilliant career. The real pain and crushing emptiness will come from having no match. Nothing to prepare. No pitchside to patrol. No players to direct. No fans to rouse. The man is an addict. Addicted to football. Addicted to winning. Addicted to success. His philosophy is simple and he put it succinctly when I met him last year: “I say to my players, ‘Enjoy the game.’ They know what I mean. I mean tha...

Lagarde Charged  I'd love to see this dodgy mare banged up *see the documentary End of the Road: How Money Became Worthless to see why. FRIENDS of Nicolas Sarkozy claim court charges against Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, over a €403m (£293m) payout to a businessman, are part of a “witch hunt” to thwart the former president’s comeback. The French justice system is often tainted with suspicions of political vendettas and the long-running saga surrounding Lagarde’s approval of a payment of compensation to Bernard Tapie appears to fit the pattern. Investigators suspect that Tapie was favoured after backing Sarkozy in the 2007 election. The businessman was spotted visiting the Elysée 22 times between 2007 and 2009. A decision last week to order Lagarde, a popular figure who has won praise for her stewardship of the IMF, to face court is “an example of the witch hunt against former president Sarkozy”, said one of his friends. “...

Love You to Death: A Year of Domestic Violence.     On average, seven women a month in Britain are killed by their male partner or ex-partner. This documentary by acclaimed director Vanessa Engle tells the gripping and untold human stories behind this shocking yet faceless statistic, shedding light on a majorly important subject - the continuing and disproportionate violence visited by men on women every day. The film features a roll call of all the women killed by their male partner or ex-partner in the course of one calendar year. Of the 164 women murdered in Britain in 2013, 86 were killed by their male partner or ex-partner. This film names all 86 women and, through interviews with families, friends and neighbours, tells the stories of seven of them in detail. Review   On average, seven women a month in Britain are killed by their male partner or ex-partner. This documentary by acclaimed director Vanessa Engle tells the gripping and unto...

’Tis The Season To Be Trollied           It’s December and there’s bound to be a bit of a do. The five festive parties you can’t escape     The Neighbour’s Drinks This one is manageable, if it is just you and them and the people on the other side of you and them. Then you can all have a moan about the bin rules, the bloke at No 4’s car alarm and No 12’s weird paint job (are those colours even legal?). But sometimes they ask other people, and then you’re all in different dress codes, and the only common ground is ways with leftover turkey. You always have a top-scoring hangover after the NDP because, for some reason, you feel you can’t refuse any of their special party food or top-ups of their Yuletide cocktail. It ruins you for all the other Christmas parties.    The Office party The office party is the one that everyone dreads a bit, because they Have So Much On and it’s taking place in...