The ways of human perversity are legion, and secretly we are glad of it, for it would be a dull world"€”a kind of ideal Switzerland raised to a higher power"€”without them. The bizarre, the wicked, and the perverse entertain us even ...

I owe everything I know about British seaside resorts (such as the unfortunately named Blackpool) to three pseudo"€“kitchen sink movies and a single Squeeze song. No wonder I can"€™t fathom why anyone would care to ...

Nothing human is alien to me, I understand nothing that is human: I cannot quite make up my mind which describes my situation the better. But certainly one of the things that I do not understand is the cult of celebrity; it mystifies me ...

We could try to blame Oprah Winfrey, but for once, that wouldn"€™t be fair. On one episode of her program, who knows how long ago, the emphatically unmarried megastar grew visibly impatient with some young woman in the audience who ...

Well before I wrote these weekly screeds, I was"€”God help us"€”a poet. One of some tiny renown, in fact. Luckily for everyone, poetry, like smoking and drinking, is among those youthful pastimes in which I no longer indulge. (Had ...

So it looks like I"€™m not really white after all. Possibly not even female. I"€™m basing this on the findings of OkCupid, the dating site that's also a data site. A few times a year, they pour some of their millions of user ...

The Japanese: nuked too much, or not enough? Exhibit A: Their epidemic affection for a century-old B-list children's book set in Canada's teeniest province and starring the original "€œred-headed stepchild,"€ a decidedly ...