Terence Blacker
Terence Blacker: Mr Makeover proves a hit with the Misters and Misses
Published: 11 October 2007
Hullo, children. Today we're going to meet one of the happiest families that has ever wobbled, hopped skipped or fallen flat on their faces in a children's book! How do I know they are happy? Because a little bird tells me that their little stories and characters were once sold for £28m.
Terence Blacker: Booker Prize scandals we have loved (and imagined...)
Published: 10 October 2007
Deliberations surrounding this year's Man Booker Prize have gone ominously quiet. Normally by this time, there should have been leaks, threats of walk-outs, and at least one revelation that a judge has been sleeping with a long-listed author. It is almost as if the team this year have simply been reading the novels in anticipation of a civilised discussion to be followed by the announcement of what will inevitably be called a "worthy winner".
Terence Blacker: The countryside in winter – that's where the action is
Published: 09 October 2007
The weekenders are gone now, their interest in the countryside disappearing at almost the precise moment when those other fair weather-friends, the swallows, have deserted us. The dew is heavy on the grass, the nights are closing in. A few late visitors may have lagged behind, bewildered and barbecue-less, and will catch a brief glimpse of what the countryside is like when its doors are not flung open, when it is not showing off for outsiders.
Terence Blacker: The new wave of reality TV stars are a bunch of animals
Published: 05 October 2007
When a person in public life compares himself to a plate of food, it is almost a sign that he is in a bad place, psychologically. So Peter Bazalgette's remarks on resigning from Endemol, the production company responsible for Big Brother, naturally caused me concern. Bazalgette must be some kind of cousin of mine – we are both descended from the Victorian sewer king Sir Joseph Bazalgette – and, although we have never met, there is a family bond there.
Terence Blacker: The green prince and the queen bee of Hollywood
Published: 04 October 2007
Ever since it was announced last month that the heir to the throne was working with Hollywood on ideas for a documentary film, those of us in the environmental movement have been trying to find out more about the project. Agonisingly, all we have told is that, excited by the success of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, Prince Charles is planning to give his philosophical ideas the big-screen treatment.
Terence Blacker: Why Sunday night's Fry-up left a greasy after-taste
Published: 03 October 2007
What a very strange and not entirely pleasant business it must be to become a National Treasure. Some, like Sir David Attenborough or Michael Palin, might have been born for it. Others, like Billy Connolly, have had to work harder. Now and then, most recently during last weekend's profoundly embarrassing media love-in for Stephen Fry, one wishes that, for his or her own sake, the potential NT had quietly declined the honour, preferring to remain a common-or-garden, fallible celebrity.
Terence Blacker: How turning off nanny's heating will save the planet
Published: 02 October 2007
It is a big week for Sir Giles Backwoodsman, the landowner and country sportsman who has been asked to explain the Conservative Party's new green policies to traditional party supporters across the country.
Terence Blacker: New punctuation to hit the right note in these jazzy times
Published: 01 October 2007
In Japan, they are writing novels on mobile phones. Nearer home, the quickest, hottest way to communicate is through a controversial, attention-grabbing blog. Forms of expression are moving and morphing, popping the buttons of the old conventions like the Incredible Hulk entering one of his green moods.
Terence Blacker: Students' laziness is an education in itself
Published: 26 September 2007
They will be settling in this week, all those nervous, excited first-year university students. During Freshers' Week, they will sign up for societies and clubs, often more out of duty than enthusiasm. They may go out drinking with their peers, engaging in edgy conversation and wishing they were at home. A few may even wonder how on earth they will be able to survive three years of university life.
Terence Blacker: 'Pussygate' proves we have lost our innocence
Published: 21 September 2007
It is now known that a major new crisis is about to engulf the BBC. A producer has been suspended. There are threats of sackings. Unions are involved. According to the chorus of critics of the Corporation, who are ever on hand to make things worse, the latest revelations reveal a profound moral and managerial crisis within the corporation.
Terence Blacker: The rich still try to buy their way in to heaven
Published: 19 September 2007
For a true appreciation of the delicate balance which exists between contemporary wealth, conscience and poverty, the best place to start is at a prominent charity dinner and auction. At these fashionable events, various key players in the great soap opera of contemporary life are brought together.
Terence Blacker: Capitalism v conservation: there's only one winner
Published: 14 September 2007
Wildness is quite the thing right now. On TV, suburban makeover shows have been supplanted by a new, hairier kind of fantasy in which man – represented by Ray Mears, Bear Grylls or Bruce Parry – pitches his wits against nature. Meanwhile, in the bookshops, the needs of armchair adventurers are being answered by two new books, Roger Deakin's Wildwood and Robert Macfarlane's The Wild Places, both of which are selling briskly.
Terence Blacker: Why this couple are an example to us all
Published: 12 September 2007
In these property-obsessed days, it's refreshing to hear of those few brave people who have not been caught up with homes, houses and domestic life. In Norfolk, a local council has been worrying over the past two years about a group of travellers who had set up home without the required planning permission. Last week, quite unexpectedly, the problem was solved. Tired of dealing with officialdom, the travellers hit the road. Apparently, they preferred to be on the move anyway.
Terence Blacker: We should all cherish Ann Widdecombe
Published: 07 September 2007
Ten years after the car crash in Paris that opened the floodgates of public emotion, the crying game is still playing well in politics and in the media. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, was tearful when interviewed following the shooting of Rhys Jones, an event which also made the BBC newsreader Fiona Bruce cry when she first heard about it.
Terence Blacker: England's green and adolescent land
Published: 05 September 2007
Few subjects provide the English with quite so much guilty fascination as that of Englishness. Convinced that we are enigmatic and widely misunderstood by less psychologically complex nations, we tend to be boastfully modest about our national character, forever drawing attention to how self-effacing we are.
Terence Blacker: Why do we not revolt against the City fat cats?
Published: 31 August 2007
This Sunday, at one of the great events in East Anglia's social calendar, the Waveney Greenpeace Fair, a Benedictine monk will dress in a recycled habit and, in a booth made of old doors, will hear the confessions of those who have sinned against the environment. "There is a huge amount of greed in the West," Dom Anthony Sutch has explained. "We have to be aware of the consequences of how we live."
Terence Blacker: We need a change of climate at the BBC
Published: 29 August 2007
Wearing its title of the nation's public service broadcaster like a badge of virtue and honour, the BBC likes to clear its schedules now and then for an exciting celebrity-strewn day of concern, comedy and music. At first, children in need were the great cause, then Third World poverty. Now climate change is the latest focus of the Corporation's caring attentions.
Terence Blacker: A crossroads is no place to make a home
Published: 24 August 2007
In Peter Tinniswood's peerless comedy of northern life, I Didn't Know You Cared, it was at about this time of the year when Carter Brandon, a lugubrious young romantic, sat with his Uncle Mort watching the swallows as they gathered on the telephone wires. Soon, Carter said, the swallows would be taking off and flying south to sunnier climes. "Lucky devils," said Uncle Mort. Then in the spring, said Carter, they would gather once more and fly all the way back here. "Bloody fools," said Uncle Mort.
Terence Blacker: Death isn't a date to put in your diary
Published: 21 August 2007
For a few of us, the description of Lord Deedes's final hours and days, affectionately described in the press, will have made rather chilling reading. He "bravely struggled to write his last column as he lay on his death bed", reported the Sunday Telegraph. "Despite being desperately ill, bedridden and 94 years old, Lord Deedes - Bill Deedes to everyone who knew him - was halfway through his weekly article on Wednesday when he became too weak to continue." He died two days later, on the day his column had been due to appear.
Terence Blacker: This BBC apology is a grovel too far
Published: 17 August 2007
Terence Blacker: Childhood innocence lost on the internet
Published: 15 August 2007
Please assume an expression of concerned sympathy, for here is another - yet another - tale of youthful innocence betrayed by middle-aged cynicism.
Terence Blacker: Don't just stand there and take it - give them hell
Published: 10 August 2007
Terence Blacker: A brutal menace is threatening our peaceful havens
Published: 09 August 2007
Terence Blacker: The things that matter in life - and other holiday delusions
Published: 08 August 2007
Terence Blacker: Easy Suzie's tales of hard living with Dylan
Published: 07 August 2007
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