The Academy’s new diversity criteria for the best picture Oscar will not effect structural change. We should rather strive for equality
Peter Townshend
Peter Townshend has been a journalist for the past 25 years, writing critical analysis for many of the country’s leading publications. In addition to writing, he has lectured journalism and media studies, was founding editor of Ethical Living magazine, and launched numerous publications. He currently also runs a training company.
Posted inNews/Politics
Policies trump parties
We need to keep our fervent loyalty for sport and when it comes to politics vote on policies not those behind them
Posted inEquality
Gasping for hope
Despite overwhelming support for Black Lives Matter, we feel hopeless — racial equality is more dream than reality and racism has never been enough for people to take to the streets
Posted inGeneral
Jesus wept: In defence of brevity
Succinct expressions of beauty tend to linger longer
Posted inNews/Politics
It’s a con-spiracy
Jewish people around the world must, for the first time in the face of a global crisis, be smiling. For once they are not to blame and not even the nuttiest conspiracy theorist can draw a pretty little line between the Jews, China, bats and a global pandemic. But then, nutty doesn’t even begin to […]
Posted inGeneral
Insulted by salt
On my daily brisk autumnal walk to the shops this morning with This Charming Man bouncing around the insides of my head, creating a sense of pleasure and introspection, two things struck me. Firstly, Morrisey’s poignant, intelligent and exposing lyrics on gay culture in the 80s are sublime: “Punctured bicycle, On a hillside desolate, Will […]
Posted inGeneral
Don’t let the arts cough, splutter and die
All forms from music and theatre to painting and sculpture offer us a mirror of ourselves and the world, escapism and understanding, and and expression of a range of emotions
Posted inGeneral
Elon Musk’s tirade against ‘fascist’ stay-at-home order is boring, childish and lazy
Elon Musk has made me angry. You know, anger, the prerequisite emotion of a fascist. And fascism seems to be all the rage at the moment. But let’s put my anger aside. After all, what is anger but simply a vehicle for expressing a more complex emotion or discontent. In this instance, the discontent is […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Comfortably numbers: Reflections on Covid-19 data
Is the coronavirus mortality rate, fallible as it is, even the number we should be focusing on right now?
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Easing the lockdown like clockwork
As we move into coronavirus lockdown level four, a scene from A Clockwork Orange illustrates the eerie limbo we inhabit