Terence Blacker

The journalist and critic Terence Blacker writes a twice-weekly topical column. He is the author of four novels and his children’s books have been published in 18 languages. Blacker’s most recent book was the highly praised biography You Cannot Live as I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This: The Thoroughly Disgraceful Life and Times of Willie Donaldson.

Terence Blacker: Business greed is the real drink problem

The great alcohol debate has become appropriately confused, muzzy and pie-eyed. It is as if those discussing the problems of what is described as "binge Britain" have themselves been bingeing for so long on statistics and press releases that they are unable to think straight, or to realise how silly they look. The more they talk, the less they do. The greater the problem, the feebler the solutions that are offered.

Recently by Terence Blacker

Terence Blacker: Now our fantasies are being policed too

Tuesday, 15 July 2008

We are losing sight of the difference between thought and deed, between the imagined and the real

Terence Blacker: We can all see you're conning us, Hazel

Friday, 11 July 2008

In a near-perfect piece of political casting, Hazel Blears has introduced a White Paper on local government, hilariously entitled Communities in Control. Like the smilingly officious primary schoolteacher she occasionally resembles, Ms Blears has patted the electorate on the head and has promised lots and lots of new rules to make things better for everybody.

Terence Blacker: How we love to wallow in other people's misery

Tuesday, 8 July 2008

Everybody loves a good divorce. Once it was only the tawdry gossip columns which, with gleeful regret, reported a famous marriage was in trouble and then watched as a couple who had once been in love set about destroying one another. Now divorce-watching is an internationally popular pastime.

Terence Blacker: The agony and the ego of the eco-celeb

Friday, 4 July 2008

It has been an excellent few days for that new and thoroughly contemporary form of self-promotion, green exhibitionism. Neil Young, the grizzled rock veteran currently on the festival circuit, has been telling anyone who will listen about his environmentally friendly 1959 Lincoln Continental. A vast machine, six metres long and weighing 2.3 tonnes, it can run on electricity. To Neil, it is more important than music itself. "You can't change the world with a song," he says. "But we could change it with this car."

Terence Blacker: Why we hark back to the old certainties

Tuesday, 1 July 2008

Between spasms of optimism and self-belief, there have been long periods of hand-wringing

Terence Blacker: A teacher takes off his shirt. Cue panic

Friday, 27 June 2008

There has been a terrible fuss across eastern England about the shocking behaviour of a supply teacher called Martin Rouse. While teaching a class of 14-year-olds in Sudbury, Suffolk, Mr Rouse, 57, behaved so inappropriately that he was asked to leave his school that very day. When alerted, the local education authority banned him for life from teaching at any school in the county. The story, reported in scandalised tones, made the headlines of the local television news and press.

Terence Blacker: Our culture is just as censorious as it ever was

Tuesday, 24 June 2008

It is no longer swear-words that have the power to offend but inappropriate thoughts

Terence Blacker: The selective morality of our business leaders

Friday, 20 June 2008

It takes real talent to pull off the rare double whammy of being described as a leech by a City lawyer and as a mugger by a senior TV executive. Yet, on the face of it, the 43-year-old Cardiff postman who was the target of these complimentary insults did nothing exceptional to earn them. He was merely rather nimbler on his feet than people whose salaries were 20 or 30 times his own.

Terence Blacker: Oh no! Yet another asinine academic theory...

Tuesday, 17 June 2008

It is the way they present their potboilers as if works of serious endeavour which is so creepy

Terence Blacker: Yes, good people do indeed have affairs

Thursday, 12 June 2008

With impeccable timing, a book which explains and excuses infidelity has just been published. Traditionally, early summer is a happy, anguished time for adulterers, seasonal erotic restlessness coinciding with the availability of longer, warmer daylight hours for illicit walks and picnics. Over the past few days, conversation among these unofficial lovers may have turned to Mira Kirshenbaum's new book, When Good People Have Affairs.

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