Christopher John Myers

David Starkey hasn’t had a good year so far – first the TV historian gets monstered for calling a pupil ‘fat’ on Jamie Oliver’s Dream School experiment Channel 4 and then he’s called a racist for observing that ‘gangsta’ culture is having a pernicious effect on Britain’s youngsters, youtube.com Let’s look at the facts.   First the pupil was fat (sorry) and, secondly, you’d have to have been living on the moon if you thought that a ‘culture’ that glorified guns, drugs, misogyny, in-your-face wealth, a perverted view of ‘respect’ and easy money was anything but pernicious. Apologies about the fat pupil comment by the way – but was it really worth such a fuss as self-styled down-with-the-kids head John ‘Chirpy Cockney Dabbs’ d'Abbro made it out to be?   ‘Dabbs’ lost a lot of his cred (in my view) when he said that Starkey’s comment ‘summed up everything he went into teaching to fight’ … or some similar right-on comment. Anyway, was Starkey being racist with his comment about gan

Aaargh - we have a new record for Photoshopped models!  The Daily Telegraph magazine featured this monster - who I estimate is about 9 foot tall.  The dress hides any Photoshopped legs, so we don't get a sense of (dis)proportion, but she's still a record-breaker. What do you think?

The older I get the more obits I read … and the more humble I get.   And Cecil ‘Cec’ Thompson’s obit in July is humbling in shedloads. Cec grew up in a series of orphanages as the son of a white mother and a Trinidadian father, who died before he was born.   He left school at 14 to work as a labourer … and through his own extraordinary inner reserves of talent and character became an international rugby player and went on to build successful careers in business and as a highly-respected teacher . He overcame race and class barriers.   There’s no better illustration of this than the 1950s newspaper headline from when he was selected for Great Britain side and the British Empire XIII- Hunslet's darkie one of Britain 's heroes .   Amazingly he was nicknamed – affectionately – ‘darkie’ for much of his career. Tributes to Cec are all over the media, but this full obituary in the Daily Telegraph is the best and most detailed.   Read on and be humbled! www.telegraph.co.uk

Given that smoking is a death sentence, and very, very sad, it’s amazing that so many talented people do it.   Are they mad?  Do they really think it looks cool, 1930's style? I read Adele’s comments about smoking – sounded like a silly schoolgirl.   How could she risk her talent like that? Even ‘fit’ actors like Brad Pitt are addicted! And so are: Lilly Allen, Martin Sheen, Pete Docherty (of course), Kate Moss (of course), Diego Maradonna, Jonathan Ross, Billie Piper, Jack Nicholson, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, Robbie Williams, Sienna Miller, Denise van Outen, Rachel Stevens, Simon Cowell, Joss Stone, Charlotte Church, Kate Winslet, Catherine Zeta Jones, Kate Beckinsale, Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Clarkson and James May, Liam Gallagher. Are they all sponsored?  Or what? Seems the tobacco industry’s clever PR work is working.    To read their latest tricks, check out this link - http://www.cigarettesflavours.com/ We need to be aware.   But how to hit back against this menace?   A