Richard D North.

For long stretches of I Am Love, I was bowled over in much the way I imagine the movie-makers intended. It had risible patches which didn't quite shake the wheels off the wagon. Read more...

There is an enormous amount to be said for Africa. Stoicism and good humour would be right up there as attributes which abound. Famously, Nigerians have all that in spades. Last night's BBC film concentrated on a Lagos rubbish dump and its scavengers. Read more...

Did you watch the Boat Race coverage? I was struck by the way Dan Snow (who rowed in several) went on and on about how winning it was lovely but losing it marked you for life. I forget the details, but it all left a powerful impression of a generation of athletes for whom winning is a graceless necessity whilst losing is a psychological catastrophe. This is bizarre and applies to other butch moderns. Read more...

This rather good-looking film was surprisingly tiresome, but I could not be quite sure why until I read some stuff about the last days of the Tolstoy marriage. Read more...

The Observer ran a story about a pair of economists, Curtis Eaton and Mukesh Eswaran, who think they've proven that affluent societies are beset by a horrible envy, and I lobbed up on the BBC News Channel to opine. Here's what I said and what I should have said. Read more...

I was bucked to have a piece run on the Guardian's Comment Is Free (Cif). I was bemoaning Mr Cameron's Makeover Politics. Here are a few reflections on the comments it received.  Read more...

The courage of EOD - bomb disposal - staff is well worth celebrating and Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker does it brilliantly. Still, this is perhaps not all that accurate an account of the trade. Read more...

Everything about the buzz surrounding Tom Ford's film led one to expect the worst. To overstate the case, one expected a sort of style fascism. Read more...

Searle is 90 tomorrow and Channel 4 News ran a tribute interview. Typically, the commentary had to have a little attitudinising. Read more...

The British military tradition is real, but it is up for grabs. Here is my account of a British military which becomes large, clever,  multi-purpose, and is deployed worldwide. Along the way, it becomes more commercial, more part-time and more argumentative. Read more...