Terence Blacker

The journalist and critic Terence Blacker writes a twice-weekly topical column. He is the author of four novels and his children’s books have been published in 18 languages. Blacker’s most recent book was the highly praised biography You Cannot Live as I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This: The Thoroughly Disgraceful Life and Times of Willie Donaldson.

Terence Blacker: Winners don't always play by the rules

Of all the names one would least expect to find in reports of a controversy about sport, life and death, and America, that of Captain Mark Phillips would be a leading contender. The captain – "Foggy Phillips", as he was unkindly known when he was the bewildered consort of Princess Anne – has been out of the headlines ever since he retired from the royal family. It turns out that he is now a big cheese in American equestrianism. Coach to the US Olympic three-day-eventing team, he also designs courses for many of the sport's leading competitions.

Recently by Terence Blacker

Terence Blacker: The whiff of defeatism in the face of an old enemy

Wednesday, 9 April 2008

Imagine for a moment that a government body has delivered a report which presents, as one of four policy options, the prospect of your house being destroyed as well as your local shops, pub, village and landscape. It could happen within the next decade or so, the experts tell you, or in a century's time. On the other hand, the disaster could take place within a year. And, no, under present legislation, there would be no compensation.

Terence Blacker: When truth and its showbiz cousin collide

Friday, 4 April 2008

The shaggy media millionaire and poet Felix Dennis has just confessed to murder. In a newspaper interview with Ginny Dougary, he told of an event, some 25 years ago, when a man he knew behaved so badly and violently towards a woman and her children that Dennis decided to take action. "In the end, I had a little meeting with him, pushed him over the edge of a cliff," he recalled. "Weren't hard... I killed him. That's all you need to know."

Terence Blacker: A stunt that exposes the truth about corporate greed

Tuesday, 1 April 2008

How is this for an image which perfectly captures the greed, hypocrisy and downright silliness of the age through which we are living? A planeload of passengers flies from Norwich to Dublin. When it arrives, the travellers wait at the airport for half an hour and then re-board the plane to fly straight back. They are, in fact, not tourists or business people but actors, whose golden dream of appearing in The Bill has brought them to Norfolk's leading (only) international airport where they will earn £82 as part of a fairly obvious scam.

Terence Blacker: Is it so terrible that marriage is in decline?

Friday, 28 March 2008

Like a tired old couple nagging wearily away at one another, politicians and the media have been bickering over the great marriage crisis exposed by the Office of National Statistics. In 2005, the number getting married fell by nine per cent from the previous year; 2006 saw another significant fall, this time of four per cent. The national marriage rate, according to the OFT, is now at its lowest level since 1862.

Terence Blacker: Why can't we let off steam on the pitch?

Wednesday, 26 March 2008

Before the current pitch invasion by wimps, cissies and goody-goodies gets out of hand, it is time to speak up for bad behaviour in football. As in any sport, there will be certain types of play which are inadmissible: the leg-breaking tackle, for example, or the elbow to the face. It is probably a bad idea to be openly contemptuous of the little, pot-bellied chap officiating the game. Tactics which fall into the category of "unsportsmanlike behaviour" are almost certainly worthy of censure. Seeing a grown man launch himself, untouched, into the air and then roll around in faked agony is unmanly and annoying for spectators and players alike.

Terence Blacker: When refusing to repent is considered suspect

Friday, 21 March 2008

It was, on reflection, not such a good idea for Sebastian Horsley, the English artist and decadent, to fly into New York on a publicity tour during Easter week. It was six years ago that he acquired a certain notoriety by having himself crucified in the Philippines. Although he has no religious pretensions other than ardent self-worship – far from dying for the sins of others, he lives for his own – such behaviour tends to go down rather badly in America, particularly among immigration officials.

Terence Blacker: Yawn! Another tale of the tragic funny man

Wednesday, 19 March 2008

Here they come again, the tragic comic gang. There is Tony Hancock, of course, and our old friend Frankie Howerd. Absent this time around are Kenneth Williams and Spike Milligan, and the ghost of Peter Cook is being given a well-earned rest, but while there are TV commissioning editors eager to give us new versions of the old stories, they will all be back. Meanwhile any scriptwriter worth his salt will be working on Benny Hill, Marty Feldman, Tommy Cooper or Bernard Manning.

Terence Blacker: Forget fame – just aim for a gig on Cromer Pier

Friday, 14 March 2008

Here is an idea for a cracking new radio series. Called something like The Horse's Mouth, each programme would bring together famous people who share a talent but who are separated by several generations. A grizzled old footballer would talk to an 18-year-old star of the future. Tony Benn could meet one of those new MPs with identikit faces and neat dark hair who are beginning to be part of the political establishment.

Terence Blacker: I'd swap French pride for British cynicism

Wednesday, 12 March 2008

Now and then, events which are utterly disparate and different align themselves into a pattern of dreamlike logic. So it has been this week with the self-banishing of the eminent actor Hugh Laurie, an uncertain spasm of loyalty to the Crown from the former attorney-general Lord Goldsmith and the 30th anniversary of the death of Claude "CloClo" François, the great French pop singer.

Terence Blacker: Novelists have responsibility as well as power

Friday, 7 March 2008

We live in a golden age of bullying. Hardly a day goes by without some example of playground mobbing being enacted in politics (a minister or party leader on the ropes), television (the latest reality-show villain) or the press (some "troubled" celebrity being niggled and pushed to the brink). It is sometimes easy to forget that the aggressors are not always in a gang. They can be individuals, talented, with a golden reputation, even decorated by the state.

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