James Delingpole's Blog, page 15

Yes **** Sherlock

Here are the two best things about Sherlock.

1. The word clouds. Sherlock is, as far as I know, the first TV series to have done this and it works very well: it’s a quick, clever, post-modern way – the visual equivalent of the voice overs on Peep Show – to reveal Sherlock’s intricate thought processes and it’s often funny too.

2. Sherlock’s overcoat. It’s by Belstaff, in case you hadn’t noticed. I certainly did. In last night’s episode, they actually showed the label. Now I happen to like Belstaff – a classic English brand (it’s what Lawrence of Arabia wore when he had his fatal motorcycle accident) cannily bought by the Italians and turned into a global luxury phenomenon a la Burberry. But I do think such naked…

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Just how bad was this year's Christmas Doctor Who?

Yes, I know it was a few days ago now but I’m still recovering from the trauma. My kids are too. They found the mawkishness so excruciating they had to hide behind the sofa. Just why was this year’s Doctor Who Christmas Special so painfully bad?

The easy answer is to blame Steven Moffat. He, after all, is the series producer and he did bash out this particular episode. But I personally think the rot goes much deeper than that. Moffat, remember, is perfectly capable of writing a properly scary, weird, well-crafted Doctor Who episode: viz, the Weeping Angels, one of the greatest ever. But he is operating within a culture of grotesque decadence and complacency. Like some…

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Passive smoking – another of the Nanny State's big lies

Passive smoking doesn’t give you lung cancer. So says a new report publicised by the American Cancer Institute which will come as no surprise whatsoever to anyone with a shred of integrity who has looked into the origins of the great “environmental tobacco smoke” meme.

It was, after all, a decade ago that the British Medical Journal, published the results of a massive, long-term survey into the effects of second-hand tobacco smoke. Between 1959 and 1989 two American researchers named James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat surveyed no few than 118,094 Californians. Fierce anti-smoking campaigners themselves, they began the research because they wanted to prove once and for all what a pernicious, socially damaging habit smoking was. Their research was initiated by the American Cancer Society and supported by the anti-smoking Tobacco Related Disease…

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The scary genius that was Lou Reed

Lou Reed, who is reported by Rolling Stone to have died aged 71, was the most terrifying rock star I have ever interviewed. Partly it was his look that was so unsettling: all those amphetamines in his rock n roll years had taken their toll. His sunken cheeks, intense staring eyes and perpetually macerating jaw gave him the look of a malevolent praying mantis in a poodle fright wig. Partly it was because he took especial delight in giving the journalists who came to see him as hard a time as possible – especially if, as I was, they were young, nervous and clearly out of their depth.

Before the interview I’d asked Tony Parsons to give me a steer on what I should be asking him. Parsons said the key thing was the…

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Unless the Conservatives come clean about the energy mess they created, they will never deserve our vote

Just how stupid does Lynton Crosby think we are?

Very, very, VERY stupid, I’m guessing. And perhaps he’s right. As part of his ongoing campaign to make the Conservatives more electable, he’s inviting us to experience the biggest outbreak of collective amnesia since Odysseus and his crew visited the Land of the Lotus Eaters. He wants us to forget the huskies. And the melting glaciers. And Dave’s announcement – from Greenpeace’s HQ, no less – that he was going to lead “the greenest government ever”. And to tell ourselves that all these unpopular wind and solar farms, all these rocketing energy prices have nothing whatsoever to do with husky-hugging Dave, leader of the greenest government ever, but with someone else entirely.

Richard North smells a rat here.

I do too. Lots of rats,…

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Free the Greenpeace 30! (And spare us any more whingeing from Damon Albarn, Jude Law and that bloke out of the Clash)

Like most caring, nurturing souls who believe in a cleaner, better, happier world I’m keen for the 30 Greenpeace activists currently being held on piracy charges by the Russians to be released from prison as soon as possible. If you saw last Thursday’s coverage of the issue on BBC Newsnight, you might understand why.

It featured an interview with Paul Simonon, formerly guitarist with the Clash, about his experiences in 2011 when – after getting involved in a similar Arctic rig protest with Greenpeace – he found himself arrested by the Norwegians. The way Emily Maitlis’s brow furrowed sympathetically during the interview, you’d think he’d been banged up for a year in the punishment block of Black Beach prison in Equatorial Guinea, not held…

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Sage advice

To the Manor Reborn (BBC1, Thursday) is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant programmes in the history of television. But then I'm biased for the Rat is in it, and what a splendid, handsome and talented young fellow he has turned out to be. If you looked very carefully about halfway through episode one, you'll have caught him standing facing interior designer Russell Sage, holding a sheet of wallpaper or something. And then later, you'll have caught him again being told by Sage to remember something he'd forgotten. Superb! The boy is a natural, he'll go far, and as his proud stepfather I shall accept nothing less than the highest offers for his services. If, say, you're a trillionaire Turkmenistani homosexual and you want a hunky catamite for your harem, don't even think of calling me with an offer of less than two million (not incl. transfer fee).

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Good news! Sea levels aren't rising dangerously

This week's Spectator cover star Nils-Axel Mörner brings some good news to a world otherwise mired in misery: sea levels are not rising dangerously – and haven't been for at least 300 years. To many readers this may come as a surprise. After all, are not rising sea levels – caused, we are given to understand, by melting glaciers and shrinking polar ice – one of the main planks of the IPCC's argument that we need to act now to 'combat climate change'?

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Maybe we'd be better off if David Cameron had gone to Harrow

"Cameron is no Churchill" writes Iain Martin this morning, winning the prize for the year's bitchiest understatement. And I like this line even better:

But asking what Mr Cameron really thinks on the subject of Europe misses the point: what he really thinks is that he wants to remain Prime Minister for the next six or seven years.

Yes. That streak of patrician, Macmillanite complacency will be the death of us all. I blame Eton. When Eton is good, it's very, very good: look at the wondrous piece of work it has created in the form of Boris Johnson. Its big problem – at least it was in the days when Cameron was there: thankfully it's much more selective, nowadays – is that it also does tend to turn out the kind…

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Climategate 2.0: junk science 101 with Michael Mann

At last, I've arrived.

Michael Mann, inventor of the Hockey Stick, has written to the Wall Street Journal branding me a "denier" and a "contrarian" and "silly." These are badges of honour I shall wear with pride.

The letter is interesting for lots of reasons, not least its grotesque hypocrisy. "In recent years", he writes, "attacks on climate science have become personal" – as if somehow the real victims of all this are not the innocent taxpayers being screwed to pay for the great green boondoggle, but ordinary decent climate scientists like Mann and his Hockey Team just trying to get on and do their job.

Every snowflake is unique, but attacks on climate science all seem the same. I should know. I've been one of the climate contrarians' preferred targets for years.

Ha…

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