Let’s hear it for Rumpole’s liberalism

Let’s hear it for Rumpole’s liberalism

I think about Horace Rumpole a lot these days, because he taught me the principles of justice. Not social justice in the modern sense. I’m talking specifically about the philosophy that underlies English common law and the court systems that sprang from it across the...
The thing with two heads

The thing with two heads

The Hexham heads. It’s a phrase I’d never heard until this year, when I attended a show called Scarred for Life. Actually, I may have heard it before, in February 1976 when I was seven. But if I had, I’d repressed it, such was the trauma of hearing werewolves...
Famous for 22 minutes

Famous for 22 minutes

You know those actors who say: “I can’t bear to watch myself. I notice all my mistakes”? Since the summer of 2019, I’ve had an inkling of what they mean. The previous September, American academic publisher McFarland brought out my book George Orwell on Screen, which...