The latest Madness of Crowds column is here:

Broadstairs, the Isle of Thanet, a frowsty sort of an evening in early August, with shadows forming within shadows down the high street – a run of chip shops, chain stores and charity shops that steepens into a ski jump, which threatens to tip you off the dirty-white crescent of cliff surrounding Viking Bay. The consensus following a wholesome chicken dinner was that we should promenade and observe the morris dancers parading through the town; after all, who but a callow sophisticate could fail to appreciate this ancient rite, with its pagan roots buried deep in the loam of old Albion?   More...

The latest Real Meals column from the New Statesman is here:

Did kidult culture spawn kidult restaurants, or was it perhaps the other way round? Certainly, the concentrated ambience of senile juvenescence that saturates establishments such as the Hard Rock Café, Planet Hollywood and TGI Friday’s makes them a suitable vanguard of the kidult revolution. I blame the Sixties. Between the door of TGI Friday’s – beside which stood a life-size model of the Iron Man (although, on reflection, is it possible for a fictional superhero to be “life-size”?) – and our table, the waiting captain challenged us with the phrase “All right, guys?” no fewer than four times, as if we were being subjected to a kidult interrogation.   More...