Rod Liddle writes for The Sunday Times and is a former speechwriter for the Labour Party and editor of the BBC's Today programme en-uk Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:37:29 GMT Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd. custserv@timesonline.co.uk http://www.timesonline.co.uk Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:30:37 GMT Newspapers 144 21 http://www.timesonline.co.uk http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,116979,00.gif Rod Liddle Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:54:00 GMT 2009-11-05T02:23:04Z A good friend of mine, an almost lifelong heroin user who, more recently, has diversified into crack cocaine and therefore requires a quick blast from an oxygen cylinder before going for a walk, rang me not so long ago with a warning: “Rod, I’m worried about your drinking,” he said. “You’ve really got to look after yourself.” I couldn’t speak for a few moments, out of incredulity and indignation; I consume on average half a bottle of wine per day, which is too much, sure — but to be lectured by a crack-addled skaghead with half a lung and the facial complexion of that character in Munch’s The Scream seemed, to me, pushing it. Rod Liddle Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:01:00 GMT 2009-10-24T11:57:38Z I was caned at school on average once a term, for myriad stupidities. Once for having written every obscenity I could think of on my maths book and then, somewhat witlessly, handing it in to be marked. Once for urinating in the domestic-science scales. Once for organising and selling tickets for a fairly vicious fight between two friends. On one remarkable occasion, simply for walking down the wrong side of a corridor. Rod Liddle Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:01:00 GMT 2009-10-18T12:39:47Z David Cameron is apparently determined that the presenter of the inane TV property programme Location, Location, Location, Kirstie Allsopp, should be appointed to the House of Lords, on the Conservative ticket. Rod Liddle Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:01:00 GMT 2009-10-10T04:21:43Z Okay, okay, I get the message — maybe it’s time to stop making jokes about women. A couple of months back I wrote a long article about Harriet Harman for The Spectator that began with a paragraph of crass, gutter-bred, laddish sexism. I had meant it to be a parody, to make a point; it seemed to me so grotesque and surreal that nobody, I thought, could mistake it for high seriousness. But, oh, they did. Rod Liddle Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-10-10T09:52:04Z Who the hell is Anton du Beke? I woke up midweek and there were all these news headlines demanding that he should be sacked. I immediately assumed he was the French politician who stuck up for Roman Polanski on that under-age rape charge and was subsequently found to have cheerfully immersed himself in Thai boys while on holiday in the Far East, as you do. Yeah sack the perv, I thought, and drifted back to an untroubled sleep.