Howard Jacobson

Howard Jacobson: Debase yourself first before someone else gets the opportunity to humiliate you

Published: 07 April 2007

We backed off from confrontation; we played along with the diplomatic falsities

Howard Jacobson: In these hypersensitive times, you don't need air miles to fly to the Land of Umbrage

Published: 31 March 2007

The air is thick with slights, more imaginary than real, and we want somebody to say sorry for them

Howard Jacobson: From Jane Austen to the diary of a London call girl, it's all the same to us these days

Published: 24 March 2007

Billie Piper was all blazing pout and pouting bosom. We like a heroine to be principled but not buttoned up

Howard Jacobson: Just what our dreary street life needs in these days of iPods: entertaining con men

Published: 17 March 2007

A new scam has appeared. And it gave me so much pleasure I want to share it with you

Howard Jacobson: It is better to be governed by old, nodding Lords than by cash-for-honours addicts

Published: 10 March 2007

Tony Blair believes we have voted him into the right to wealth. That comes with being elected now

Howard Jacobson: You wouldn't think that love, marriage and psychoanalysis would make a fun night out

Published: 03 March 2007

It was Irving Berlin's 'Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better' that brought the house down

Howard Jacobson: Clowns aren't funny. They're malicious, vile creatures who deserve everything they get

Published: 24 February 2007

What you pray for now is that Kaspar will learn from the inside what an unpardonable liberty clowning is

Howard Jacobson: Our unhappy, drunken children are the result of not placing any value on culture

Published: 17 February 2007

Why can't we say their lives would be better if they were curious about something other than celebrity?

Howard Jacobson: Independent Jewish Voices can carry on talking to themselves. I don't want to know

Published: 10 February 2007

Its fantasy of itself as a doughty band confronting the might of official bias is self-indulgent

Howard Jacobson: Imagine the scene when Sol Kerzner comes face to face with a typical Beswick urchin

Published: 03 February 2007

Gangs of four-year-olds roamed the precinct demanding protection money

Howard Jacobson: Imagine what Charles Dickens would have done with a character like Jade Goody

Published: 27 January 2007

While he saw qualities in the downtrodden, he did not confuse misfortune with virtue

Howard Jacobson: 'Big Brother' encourages something worse than racism

Published: 20 January 2007

The debate as to whether Jade and her super-dumb cohorts are racist is not worth having

Howard Jacobson: It probably isn't wise to look to Robin Cook for inspiration when writing your epitaph

Published: 13 January 2007

Why do I wish the Iraq war had not been intermingled with his mortal remains?

Howard Jacobson: Even the wicked can show some dignity, no matter how much we try to deprive them of it

Published: 06 January 2007

It was written across Saddam's face when he declined the black hood and accepted the noose

Howard Jacobson: There is nothing to fear when you reach the seventh age of man. On the contrary

Published: 30 December 2006

Leave aside their proximity to death and the old have the best of it. They know what they know

Howard Jacobson: It's official... if you take the trouble to read Shakespeare, your brain will thank you for it

Published: 23 December 2006

Forgive my jubilation, but I have been waiting for this scientific proof for a long time

Howard Jacobson: Be careful whose history you deny, for to hate them you must steep yourself in them

Published: 16 December 2006

There is no historian of the Holocaust That Never Was who isn't a Jew-hater first

Howard Jacobson: Sometimes a bit of irrational behaviour can stop you from acting like a plonker

Published: 09 December 2006

Even those without imagination of disaster know you don't go round telling bosses where to stuff it

Howard Jacobson: Go chasing rainbows by all means. But don't be surprised when disappointment sets in

Published: 25 November 2006

Of the words we devalue by the hour, 'dream' is going down the pan quicker than most

Howard Jacobson: Fashion is a farce when an expensive handbag has to look cheap and nasty

Published: 18 November 2006

And the fact that you've shelled out a thousand pounds on it proves just what a good joke it is

Howard Jacobson: Tony Blair can't help but look both ways in the matter of Saddam Hussein's execution

Published: 11 November 2006

Allow him to be in two places at once is all I say. Grant him, if nothing else, the privilege of ambivalence

Howard Jacobson: The Ten Commandments would have faded long ago if they sounded like a self-help book

Published: 04 November 2006

What is revealed in the grandeur of the writing is the grandeur of man's conception of his being

Howard Jacobson: We don't need scientists to point out the obvious: men are enslaved by gadgets

Published: 28 October 2006

"There's a bit of testicle," I heard someone say on Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time last week, "at the bottom of our most sublime feelings." The quotation was from Denis Diderot, philosopher, critic, encyclopaedist, discreet pornographer. If I could leave this week's column at that, I would. Reader, there's a bit of testicle at the bottom of most things. Now good day to you.

Howard Jacobson: Why I'm not complaining, even if 'Jane Eyre' is the greatest castration story ever told

Published: 21 October 2006

A once-proud, licentious man is reduced to a state of sightless dependency so he is fit to marry

Howard Jacobson: The veil can induce impure thoughts, but the opposite can be true of the hen-night floozy

Published: 14 October 2006

The wimple, far from keeping me at a decent distance, invites me where I have no business

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