Comment: Enough, detox bores. Why don't you get a liver?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the fun is almost over, folks. It's that time of year when heady excess gives way to needy self-flagellation. Because no sooner has the Advocaat been drained and the last Lindor unfurled that someone starts banging on loudly about their internal cleansing rituals – involving kale, wheatgrass, and similar middle-class foodstuffs – and entreating all within hectoring distance to join them in their annual detox.

Radio column: British Borgen

"Why?" I howled at 30-second intervals during Borgen: Outside the Castle, this week's wholly pointless spin-off of the Danish television series on Radio 4. Three episodes in and I'm still at a loss.
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Radio column: Why World Service and Radio 4 led the field on Mandela

When a political giant and beacon of freedom dies, it is only natural that there will be a period of tribute and reminiscence. Late last week, sandwiched between the pre-prepared retrospectives across the world's media, there was no shortage of politicians, pundits and pop stars paying effusive tribute to the late Nelson Mandela, even when some of those selfsame politicians, pundits and pop stars had previously been on a jolly to South Africa paid for by an anti-sanctions lobby group; or voted against resolutions calling for Mandela's release; or broken the boycott of an apartheid regime for their own financial gain.
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Radio column: Tangled up in Dylan

Bob Dylan, I can take him or leave him. Sorry, but it's true. Oh I get that Bob is a big deal. You can bang on all you like about how he's a peerless songwriter and poet and maverick who changed popular culture for ever, and I will nod sagely in agreement.
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