Attention HMG: The normalisation of Trumpism is NOT okay. A racist, misogynist, nativist, ableist, authoritarian, violence-inciting, press-assailing, know-nothing, conspiracy-mongering, foul-mannered, pathologically lying, narcissistic, fascist kidnapper and confessed sexual predator should not be welcomed (or, indeed, allowed) in the UK....   (read more)

Some photos from the dedication of the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey, the Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, and from Remembrance Day itself; plus a video of the two-minute silence....   (read more)

I not only don't want to be late for the trailers, I don't want to be late for the adverts. Movie magic....   (read more)

Well, that - the horrific stabbing murder of a British soldier wearing a Help for Heroes t-shirt in broad daylight by Islamist asshats in SE London - at least settles the question of what I run in today, and every day for the rest of the month....   (read more)

Remembrance Day, and the run-up to it, is my favourite thing on a long list of reasons I love the UK. That an entire nation pauses to visibly, and palpably, give thanks to the millions who sacrificed, fought, and died to gift us with our lives, freedom, security, and prosperity, and does so every year without fail, is incredibly beautiful to watch - and to have the privilege of being part of....   (read more)

So, as you will or will not have read, U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, just before his big visit to London, executed the blinding diplomatic maneuver of slagging off London's epic seven-year preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games....   (read more)

Today is Remembrance Sunday in the UK. The Queen, along with every living former Prime Minister, turn out in Whitehall to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph - the UK's memorial to all of its war dead....   (read more)

Here's a little something to get you through the Great Monday of 2011. Michael Macintyre is our - not to mention Britain's - consensus favourite funnyman. He rocks....   (read more)

Well, it looked like it was happening again. ("It" being student protests-cum-riots.) I passed this one police constable (PC) who looked like he was completely loaded for bear...   (read more)

Apparently your student population isn't pleased about paying ANYTHING for a higher education......   (read more)

It's like the Battle of Algiers out there. I counted no fewer than 41 police vans on, or just off of, Parliament Square....   (read more)

I happened to catch some bits of the last Prime Minister's Questions. This man is a total knob - a muppet of the first rank. And Mr Cameron gives him a well-deserved, and well-executed, spanking....   (read more)

The passport has definitely made it feel a lot realer than the (admittedly lovely) citizenship ceremony....   (read more)

"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it." - John Stuart Mill...   (read more)

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Churchill's Battle of Britain speech. When all of Europe was engulfed by a horrendous evil, Churchill stood at the head of the British people and swore eternal resistance....   (read more)

I'm very pleased to say, and feel obliged to say (after my spew of vitriol about Brown), a few quick, heart-felt, gushing things about the new PM, Deputy PM - and 'our Liberal Conservative government' (to borrow Cameron's phrase)....   (read more)

Yesterday our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, out on the campaign trail, had a very pleasant, smiling chat with a local woman, then jumped in his limo with his wireless mic still attached, and proceeded to completely slag her off....   (read more)

So I was walking to work across Westminster Bridge this morning, when I slowly overtook three blokes in camouflage shorts and carrying little donation kitties and one of whom had a backpack with a Union flag on a little pole flying out the back....   (read more)

Regular readers won't soon have forgotten my fawning tribute to military memoirs - and, not at all incidentally, to the service members whose stunning stories inspired the stories....   (read more)

A few days from now, Fourth of July celebrations will be held in small towns and big cities all across America. At the same time, halfway around the world, 170,000 brave young men and women will demonstrate their patriotism in another way: by putting their lives at risk to defend everything America stands for....   (read more)

I told him that really a Tube Strike is pretty much like the weather - no one can do anything about it, so everyone just works around it, and I like running, anyway. Well, by the end of yesterday, I've changed my position. My position now is: Frack TFL....   (read more)

Daniel Hannan, whom I've extolled previously, has a tongue like a serpent's tooth, an indominitable protectiveness over liberty - and a seriously mean streak towards Gordon Brown....   (read more)

Add in the F&^%ing Royal Mail to the equation - as the only way to get your irreplaceable documents to, or back from, the F&^%ing Home Office....   (read more)

Everyone likes Joe Lieberman. Well, some people, like Erin, are disappointed in Joe Lieberman. But everyone likes (and respects) him. He's like your favourite, goofy, Jewish uncle. Uncle Joe....   (read more)

As winter yields to spring and the Earth renews itself and you and I walk peacefully through the lengthening days, others remain toiling in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq. They are American and British (and Australian and Polish) men and women, and they are working and sweating and fighting and dying on my behalf, and on yours - and on behalf of millions of people they'd never before met, but who now have a chance of freedom and self-determination and prosperity and peace, after decades of knowing only tyranny and war....   (read more)

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and (thus) head of the Church of England, gave a speech in which he predicted that the adoption of some parts of sharia (Islamic religious law) within the UK were "inevitable"...   (read more)

The following excerpted piece appears in full in Shots, The Crime and Thriller E-Zine. - When I wrote my first novel, I knew I wanted to include an awful lot of gunplay...   (read more)

Shortly after posting my recent piece on the spectacularly and amusingly unsuccessful attacks in London and Glasgow, I realised I'd mislabelled the perpetrators in calling them "losers". Much more apt would have been the lovely, amusing, and oh-so-useful British epithet of "muppets". These guys truly are muppets of the first rank, and they're running a Muppet Jihad....   (read more)

"As I write these words, and as you read them, people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction, and the destruction of all the hardwon human attainments that I have touched upon. Religion poisons everything." - Christopher Hitchens...   (read more)

So if you haven't been following along, Prince Harry - third in line to the throne - joined the Army....   (read more)

"'Just the place to bury a crock of gold,' said Sebastian. 'I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I was old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.'"...   (read more)

Due to popular demand (well, the two people who made these demands are popular with me), I've implemented a few improvements to the dispatch commenting system:...   (read more)

And so morning arrived at the gloriously well-appointed camp site that was somehow wildly inferior to all the pub back yards we'd camped in. Note to self, I thought: Four pints is one pint too many....   (read more)

Today is Veterans Day in the U.S. - and Remembrance Day in the UK. At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the entire country stops, sits in two minutes of total silence, and remembers the men and women who died on their behalf....   (read more)

So perhaps good humour, good fortune, and general freedom from care have begun to wear you down, get a bit oppressive. If so, I'm pleased to be able to offer the following prescription for immediate and radical mood delevation...   (read more)

Did I mention my resolution to read only English novelists while I'm here? Luckily, England's produced one or two decent ones. ;^) I actually broke down once, which event I memorialized in this poem:...   (read more)

"The British people are the sort of partners you want when serious work needs doing. The men and women of this kingdom are kind and steadfast and generous and brave, and America is fortunate to call this country our closest friend in the world." - George W. Bush, yesterday's Whitehall address...   (read more)