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Telegraph
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
‘It's shed-ule, not sked-ule': The mispronunciations that annoy us the most
When Susie Dent, Countdown 's etymology guru, declared on Wednesday that the common mispronunciation of 'mischievous' as 'mischiev-i-ous' should now be considered acceptable, she caused a stir not just at the Hay Festival but among traditionalists across the country. The reaction to her intervention highlights the extraordinary capacity of mispronounced words to irritate the listener – and how everyone has their own particular bugbears. Here, Telegraph writers and editors identify the pronunciations that grate the most – and confess to some of their own errors. 'Haitch' – Christopher Howse, assistant editor In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the heroine is obliged by American Puritans to wear a big red A to show she has been caught in adultery. I'd like to see a capital H worn by anyone caught pronouncing it 'haitch'. Admittedly 'aitch' is a funny name for a letter. Q and R are funny too, but you don't hear people saying 'rar' instead of 'ar'. 'Haitch', though, is a case of hypercorrection and genteelism. It's like saying 'to my wife and I' because it sounds more polite than 'to my wife and me'. Children used to be told not to drop their aitches. The mistake is to think an aitch belongs at the beginning of 'aitch'. Last year I was impressed by the bravery of Amol Rajan, the Today presenter, who, after 40 years alive and a Cambridge degree in English, announced he was now going to start pronouncing 'aitch' correctly. Bravo. In 1862, Punch, in its class-conscious way, mocked the aspiration of 'aitch': 'She could not bear hoysters until there was a haitch in the month.' But I'm afraid it's a class-marker still, and we condemn our children to a life of social degradation if we let them say 'haitch'. Jeremy Butterfield, the editor of Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, thinks 'haitch' will prevail, 'unspeakably uncouth though it may appear'. Against this final assault by Chaos and Old Night, Amol and I will die in the last ditch, in which we may find room for you too. 'Wrath' – , royal editor The royal world is full of words ready to trip you up, from the lord lieutenants ('left-tenants', of course, rather than 'lew-tenants') to equerries. Even Princess Eugenie has to explain she is a 'YOO-jenny' with the handy comparison to 'use-your-knees'. That's before you even get to the aristocratic titles, names and homes. Cholmondeley pronounced 'chumley'; Belvoir Castle pronounced 'beaver'; Buckingham Palace without stressing the 'ham'. Earl Spencer has largely given up the struggle for the traditional pronunciation of Princess Diana's childhood home Althorp. The old 'áwltrop' has now been overtaken by 'all-thorp', the version commonly (and understandably) used by visitors. If you haven't grown up in that world, you haven't got a hope. So I try not to be snooty about people getting things wrong, as I've done quite a few times myself. There is only really one word that I notice every time: wrath. In 2004, when I was a bright-eyed young fresher, a clearly better educated young man at university corrected my misuse of 'wrath' in the middle of a story I was telling. I had said the American version, rhyming with 'Cath' or the northern UK pronunciation of 'bath', rather than the correct British version, 'roth'. It has annoyed me ever since – mostly because he was right. I always notice it in others and have been known to gently, privately point it out to spare others the same social embarrassment. It's a good job I changed my ways. That fresher who corrected me? Reader, I married him. 'Harassment' – Lisa Markwell, head of long reads My mother has always had a lot to say about pronunciation – or rather, mispronunciations. It's definitely rubbed off on me. In my youth, a boyfriend was quickly dispatched (by me, I should add, not her) because he said 'hyperbowl' rather than 'hi-per-bol-ee'; it was his second offence after 'epy-tome' rather than 'ep-it-o-mee'. In adulthood, what I have trained myself to do is never to correct, but to try and use the word with the correct pronunciation as soon as possible in the conversation. It's kinder that way. It comes from an annoying waiter sneering at me ordering scallops. 'Do you mean scoll -ops?', he intoned, snootily. But the creeping Americanisation of words really grinds my gears. The changing from noun to verb is now, appallingly, well established – but that's a rant for another day. The way in which words become their most base selves in the way they are spoken just feels wrong. Yes, British English (if we can call it that), is full of idiosyncrasies, but it's always been like that. Take lieutenant: who knows why it is pronounced 'left-tenant' but it very much is not 'lew-tenant'. See also, 'har-ass-ment' when it should be 'harass-ment' – that's one of the words my mother still gets exercised about to this day. Then there's 'schedule' which, for the avoidance of any doubt, is 'shed-ule', not 'sked-ule'. Any number of YouTube videos and US dramas will not change my mind. But if I'm honest, 'privacy' is the one that catches me out and I am furious that it turns out I've been getting it wrong all this time. It's 'prih-vacy', not 'pry-vacy'. Please respect my 'prih-vacy' at this difficult time. 'Espresso' – Kamal Ahmed, The Daily T presenter and director of audio An admission. I am a self-hating mispronouncer. And my big one is ' espresso ' – which I pronounce 'expresso'. Just like most other people. When it should of course be 'e-spresso', as there is no 'x' in the word – literally (a word I insert into sentences for no apparent reason, another bugbear). But if you do actually say 'espresso' with an Italian flare you sound a bit ridiculous. Like saying 'panino' in an Italian deli when you want one sandwich with prosciutto (try pronouncing that properly) and buffalo mozzarella. And no-one says Paris like they are French, do they? Unless they are, literally, French. 'Twenny' – Poppy Coburn, acting deputy comment editor The resurgence of the regional accent has a lot to answer for when it comes to linguistic bastardisation. Familiarity breeds contempt, and so I reserve my deepest distaste for the Essex drawl. Born in Southend and raised in Braintree, I experienced the full breadth of the cockney-ish interpretation of the English language, from 'shut uppp' to 'innit' to (oh God) 'reem'. Words would become needlessly elongated by a refusal to vocalise 'er', and so 'proper' became 'propaaa' and 'water' turned to 'wor-arrrrr'. But by far the most objectionable trend was the dropping of consonants, with 'twenty' morphing into 'twenny'. I once made the mistake of saying 'twenny' to my grandmother, a Norfolk-born ex-headteacher who took great pride in her parents having arranged for her to take elocution lessons. I soon found myself an unwilling pupil in her pronunciation lessons. My sister and I now have completely diametric accents and articulate words so differently that we often seem to be speaking other languages. I may have been mercilessly teased at school for sounding like the Queen, but I've come to appreciate my slightly posh voice. It certainly helps when I'm trying to be understood over the phone or talking to a non-native speaker. 'Archipelago' – Mick Brown, features writer A friend of mine has a singular way of pronouncing the word that describes a group or chain of islands within a body of water. As we all know, the word is 'archipelago' – pronounced 'arki-pel-ago'. She pronounces it as 'archie pel-ago', as if she's talking about a 1930s music hall act. This is a result of pronouncing a word as you read it, not as you hear it said. I can understand that. Archipelago is not a word you hear in everyday speech. And who am I to correct her? For years I pronounced 'epitome' as 'epi-tome', rather than the correct pronunciation, 'e-pit-omee'. And I still struggle with the word hummus. Although I don't think there is consensus over the correct 'British' pronunciation, I do know that Delia Smith and I are both wrong. Delia was once caught on camera for a cookery show, standing at a supermarket shelf apparently buying something called 'who-moose', as if it were a subspecies of the large North American mammal. While, for some reason, I got it into my head a long time ago that it was pronounced 'hommus', and I still can't stop. That's the problem with mispronunciations, they're like earworms. Once they're lodged in the brain it's almost impossible to get them out. I don't think I'm alone in stumbling over the word 'mispronunciation' itself. A common complaint is that American pronunciations have infiltrated the English language. To hear Americans talking about 'erbs', with a silent 'h', is like fingernails screeching on a blackboard. And who is this famous artist they are constantly referring to as Van Go? A friend in America recently sent me a list of the three hardest things for an American to say: 'I'm wrong', 'I need help' and 'Worcestershire'. Just keep them guessing. What mispronunciations annoy you the most – and which are you guilty of? Let us know in the comments.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alex Kay-Jelski seeing off Gary Lineker ushers in BBC Sport's ‘new culture'
Just over a fortnight ago, the man who helped pull the trigger on the BBC's biggest beast was already hinting of a change in direction for his staff. An ego-free culture of collegiate working for the digital era was heralded by Alex Kay-Jelski, a year into his reign as the corporation's director of sport. 'There are so many amazing examples across the department of people starting to work together more closely, making new multi-platform plans and going deeper with storytelling,' he wrote in an internal memo. 'Staff are also calling out behaviours they have seen that don't fit into the culture we want.' The all-staff rallying cry will have landed in Gary Lineker's inbox on May 2. Unfortunately, the famous recipient had already set off in a direction undermining such 'working together' demands. Two outspoken interviews, published either side of his self-destructive Instagram post, would ultimately help seal Lineker's fate in the eyes of Kay-Jelski and his inner circle. Credit: garylineker/Instagram Lineker was perceived to have taken aim at BBC colleagues in an Amol Rajan interview last month in which he was probed about his outspoken social media use. 'Why?,' cried Lineker when Rajan put to him that the corporation is duty-bound to be impartial on Israel-Palestine relations. 'It needs to be factual.' Senior BBC figures were taken aback at Lineker's suggestion it 'wasn't impartial about Ukraine and Russia'. When Rajan put to him that it 'sounds like you think the BBC is in a complete mess on impartiality', Lineker denied so, but added: 'I think facts are the most important thing.' The takeaway for Kay-Jelski was that Lineker had learnt little in the two years since his run-in with Tim Davie, the director-general, over his social media post about the previous government's asylum policy. For the likes of Roger Mosey, who managed Lineker as a former head of BBC Television, the clock had been ticking for Lineker from then on. 'I do not think he's a great diviner of BBC editorial policy,' Mosey told Radio 4's Today programme on Monday. 'It's a slightly weird thing when you're watching from the outside of the BBC, giving a platform to its highest-paid presenter to misinterpret BBC editorial policy. That, I think, is part of the problem.' Lineker's antics last week – the rat emoji Instagram post and his incendiary interview with The Telegraph's Oliver Brown – bordered on insulting his paymasters over the past 26 years. For Kay-Jelski, a respected sports editor at The Athletic, The Times and the Daily Mail, it had got personal. Having stirred much intrigue when telling Rajan last month that people within the organisation 'wanted me to leave', Lineker acknowledged to Brown that it had been a 'dramatic change' of regime under Kay-Jelski. 'I think it has, and that's what I was alluding to,' Lineker confirmed. 'He has his reasons, he wants to change Match of the Day a bit. Ultimately, I don't think they will, because I don't see how you move a highlights show away from being about highlights. I think he wants more journalists – he has come from that background. He has got no television experience.' That last sentence will have stuck in the craw as it echoes a challenge that had already been put to Kay-Jelski's inner circle. Kay-Jelski had moved to address such concerns about his efforts to prioritise journalism and storytelling in his last update to staff. Having previously announced redundancies, Kay-Jelski wrote in his May email that '88 per cent of you understand why the BBC needs to transform'. Modernising efforts at the BBC, ensuring its journalists are working across multiple platforms, is being done to 'protect ourselves for the future of the BBC and I can't think of a better reason than that', Kay-Jelski added. During a period of major change, there has been no time to stroke egos like his predecessor Barbara Slater might have done. Slater told MPs in 2023 that 'We love Gary and Gary loves the BBC', but there was no public glowing tribute from Kay-Jelski in a press release confirming Lineker's departure on Monday. There was subsequently an internal email in which he acknowledged the BBC was losing a 'brilliant broadcaster' but the overall message was 'keep calm and carry on'. 'I appreciate the last week has been difficult and emotional for many of you,' he told staff. 'Thank you for all the messages and conversations, even if some of them weren't easy to have. And I hope you understand that I had to wait until now to tell you the news. It is sad to be saying goodbye to such a brilliant broadcaster and I also want to thank Gary for his years of service. As ever, if you have questions, you know where I am.' The decision to tear up Lineker's extended deal was ultimately made by Kay-Jelski's boss Davie. But in many ways Lineker's departure now makes the task in hand more straightforward as a new era begins in earnest at BBC Sport. 'The triumph of Gary's negotiating was to stay with the FA Cup and the World Cup,' said Mosey of what was set to be a 'peculiar outcome'. Instead, Mark Chapman, Gabby Logan and new signing Kelly Cates – the new faces of Match of the Day – are Kay-Jelski's undisputed chosen ones. As Mosey observes, 'they won't be put back in the cupboard' for the World Cup next summer. With Lineker's victory lap cancelled, Kay-Jelski may have added a few grey hairs in recent days. Ultimately, however, the task in hand becomes clearer. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Alex Kay-Jelski seeing off Gary Lineker ushers in BBC Sport's ‘new culture'
Just over a fortnight ago, the man who helped pull the trigger on the BBC's biggest beast was already hinting of a change in direction for his staff. An ego-free culture of collegiate working for the digital era was heralded by Alex Kay-Jelski, a year into his reign as the corporation's director of sport. 'There are so many amazing examples across the department of people starting to work together more closely, making new multi-platform plans and going deeper with storytelling,' he wrote in an internal memo. 'Staff are also calling out behaviours they have seen that don't fit into the culture we want.' The all-staff rallying cry will have landed in Gary Lineker's inbox on May 2. Unfortunately, the famous recipient had already set off in a direction undermining such 'working together' demands. Two outspoken interviews, published either side of his self-destructive Instagram post, would ultimately help seal Lineker's fate in the eyes of Kay-Jelski and his inner circle. Lineker was perceived to have taken aim at BBC colleagues in an Amol Rajan interview last month in which he was probed about his outspoken social media use. 'Why?,' cried Lineker when Rajan put to him that the corporation is duty-bound to be impartial on Israel-Palestine relations. 'It needs to be factual.' Senior BBC figures were taken aback at Lineker's suggestion it 'wasn't impartial about Ukraine and Russia'. When Rajan put to him that it 'sounds like you think the BBC is in a complete mess on impartiality', Lineker denied so, but added: 'I think facts are the most important thing.' The takeaway for Kay-Jelski was that Lineker had learnt little in the two years since his run-in with Tim Davie, the director-general, over his social media post about the previous government's asylum policy. For the likes of Roger Mosey, who managed Lineker as a former head of BBC Television, the clock had been ticking for Lineker from then on. 'I do not think he's a great diviner of BBC editorial policy,' Mosey told Radio 4's Today programme on Monday. 'It's a slightly weird thing when you're watching from the outside of the BBC, giving a platform to its highest-paid presenter to misinterpret BBC editorial policy. That, I think, is part of the problem.' Lineker's antics last week – the rat emoji Instagram post and his incendiary interview with The Telegraph's Oliver Brown – bordered on insulting his paymasters over the past 26 years. For Kay-Jelski, a respected sports editor at The Athletic, The Times and the Daily Mail, it had got personal. Having stirred much intrigue when telling Rajan last month that people within the organisation 'wanted me to leave', Lineker acknowledged to Brown that it had been a 'dramatic change' of regime under Kay-Jelski. 'I think it has, and that's what I was alluding to,' Lineker confirmed. 'He has his reasons, he wants to change Match of the Day a bit. Ultimately, I don't think they will, because I don't see how you move a highlights show away from being about highlights. I think he wants more journalists – he has come from that background. He has got no television experience.' That last sentence will have stuck in the craw as it echoes a challenge that had already been put to Kay-Jelski's inner circle. Kay-Jelski had moved to address such concerns about his efforts to prioritise journalism and storytelling in his last update to staff. Having previously announced redundancies, Kay-Jelski wrote in his May email that '88 per cent of you understand why the BBC needs to transform'. Modernising efforts at the BBC, ensuring its journalists are working across multiple platforms, is being done to 'protect ourselves for the future of the BBC and I can't think of a better reason than that', Kay-Jelski added. During a period of major change, there has been no time to stroke egos like his predecessor Barbara Slater might have done. Slater told MPs in 2023 that 'We love Gary and Gary loves the BBC', but there was no public glowing tribute from Kay-Jelski in a press release confirming Lineker's departure on Monday. There was subsequently an internal email in which he acknowledged the BBC was losing a 'brilliant broadcaster' but the overall message was 'keep calm and carry on'. 'I appreciate the last week has been difficult and emotional for many of you,' he told staff. 'Thank you for all the messages and conversations, even if some of them weren't easy to have. And I hope you understand that I had to wait until now to tell you the news. It is sad to be saying goodbye to such a brilliant broadcaster and I also want to thank Gary for his years of service. As ever, if you have questions, you know where I am.' The decision to tear up Lineker's extended deal was ultimately made by Kay-Jelski's boss Davie. But in many ways Lineker's departure now makes the task in hand more straightforward as a new era begins in earnest at BBC Sport. 'The triumph of Gary's negotiating was to stay with the FA Cup and the World Cup,' said Mosey of what was set to be a 'peculiar outcome'. Instead, Mark Chapman, Gabby Logan and new signing Kelly Cates – the new faces of Match of the Day – are Kay-Jelski's undisputed chosen ones. As Mosey observes, 'they won't be put back in the cupboard' for the World Cup next summer. With Lineker's victory lap cancelled, Kay-Jelski may have added a few grey hairs in recent days. Ultimately, however, the task in hand becomes clearer.
Times
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Gary Lineker: I'm a better presenter now, which is a good time to go
An early afternoon with Gary Lineker involves getting your clothes covered in dog hair because friendly Filbert likes a tummy tickle, re-enacting his recent Panorama-style interview with the BBC's Amol Rajan, and chatting about Trent Alexander-Arnold, Thomas Tuchel and Big Brother, and how Lineker's suspension from the BBC became headline news. But I am in his southwest London home predominantly to mark the end of an era. There must be very few people in England who do not know by now that after 26 years at the helm, Lineker will present Match of the Day for the last time this month. He suspects they might mark the moment with a montage of his best bits but is intrigued how they will link to
The Herald Scotland
15-05-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Is Radio Scotland's morning show better than 'obsequious' Radio 4?
Quirky factoids aside, Today's reputation as the apex predator in the BBC's news bestiary comes from its long tradition of polite but red-clawed questioning of politicians, and from its forensic and exacting scrutiny of their policies and motivations – so exacting that many in the Thatcher government accused the programme of bias. They weren't the last to play that card. In Scotland from the early 1960s our radio morning news was served (though that's probably too kind a word) by an opt-out from Today called Today In Scotland – a news round-up of a mere 20 minutes. It was another decade before Good Morning Scotland was birthed, a programme based in part on the Today template but devoted more fully to Scottish news. Read more It launched on New Year's Eve 1973, and for the first fortnight its news items were interspersed with music. Cue howls of protest, many in the form of letters to this newspaper. The muzak was quickly ditched. BBC Radio Scotland became a separate entity in 1978 and Good Morning Scotland (or GMS as it's known) is now the longest running programme on the network. Fast forward to 2025 and here's the wider point: social media may be immediate and reactive, television authoritative and incisive (at its best, anyway) but only the radio news can be all four at once. Which is why the morning radio news, the form we wake to and which literally informs our day, still matters greatly. But with both Good Morning Scotland and Today now well into middle-age, how is their relative health – and what are the challenges facing them? In these days of DAB radio you can switch between the programmes at the press of a button. For three hours I do just that, a process which usefully demonstrates the ways in which they compare, differ – and occasionally fail. First the differences. On GMS you'll hear travel news and regular call-outs to listeners to engage with stories via text or email. On Monday the burning question was whether people should have to swallow the 25 pence surcharge on hot take-away drinks proposed by the Scottish Government – the so-called 'latte levy'. And engage they did, chipping in with advice and opinions which were aired later in the show. Well, it's better than musical interludes but you'll find no such fripperies on Today, which is a blessing. The GMS approach makes for an uneasy hybrid of serious news show and not-quite-phone-in. Amol Rajan of Today - his show can seem too tightly bound to the British establishment (Image: free) But Today can seem obsequious in ways GMS does not, or at least more tightly bound to the less edifying aspects of the BBC's role as state broadcaster. An example: Monday's programme saw presenters Amol Rajan and Anna Foster parked on the Mall in London (Rajan) and somewhere in Coventry (Foster) for a show themed around VE Day celebrations which were to include a military procession and a fly past attended by the King. For GMS, this was a London story, so a headline news item but not too much else. More importance was given to consideration of the pros and cons of Galloway's impending National Park status and of the chances of Reform making inroads in Scotland. Good stuff. Better stuff. Good Morning Scotland feels freer in other ways too. These next observations aren't based on hard evidence, rather on observation and regular listening, but GMS seems to cover Canada more, particularly since the Trump tariffs started to bite. A nod to Scotland's ties with the country? Also, over the 18 months of the war in Gaza it's my impression that the coverage by GMS – and by BBC Radio Scotland news in general – has been wider, more frequent, less hesitant and less circumspect than Today's. Perhaps there's a reason for that too. Piqued at being challenged in a live interview on Today last August, an Israeli government spokesman made allegations about pro-Palestinian bias against presenter Mishal Husain. The BBC defended the highly-regarded broadcaster for asking 'legitimate and important questions in a professional, fair and courteous manner'. But sensitivities south of the border may have been heightened by the exchange. Certainly some of Husain's fellow presenters have signally failed to push back in subsequent interviews in the way she did. But again, that's a subjective observation. Read more It is true to say Good Morning Scotland isn't as slick as Today. It often feels like there's less in it, the interviews aren't as snappy, the interviewees often aren't as polished (though that's not necessarily a bad thing) and its position on booking guests seems to be: 'Why bother with a heavy hitter when there's a journalist available?' Which is why on Monday the task of commenting on Donald Trump's mooted tariff on foreign films fell not to a creator of such items or even an industry insider but to the US editor of The Times (though in fairness there was an industry voice in Tuesday's show). That said, of the two programmes it's GMS which seems more sure of itself. It does what it has to do well enough, and in mainstay presenters Gary Robertson and Laura Maxwell, as well as stand-ins such as Laura Maciver and Graham Stewart, it has a cadre of talented journalists well able to ask the difficult questions. What it does lack is Today's clout in terms of big name interviewees. Fair enough. Less forgivable, perhaps, is its willingness to tackle radical or high-concept ideas. Another example: Monday's Today programme featured an interview with superstar architect Norman Foster which was chewy as well as personal, followed by a chat with award-winning nature writer Robert Macfarlane. He was discussing the subject of his new book – rivers – and in particular a growing ecological movement which seeks to have them accorded rights under law. It's hard to see GMS giving that kind of subject serious airtime, which is a shame. But even as audience figures rise it feels like it's Today more than GMS which has its issues. The churn in presenters doesn't help, nor do the presenting styles of the newbies. You don't have to be a reader of Private Eye to know that something is up in that regard, but if you are you'll be aware that the arrival of starry incomers Emma Barnett and Amol Rajan has not been met with enthusiasm in all quarters. For example there is talk of a feud between Barnett and Nick Robinson, the BBC's former political editor and a Today presenter since 2015. Barnett joined in May 2024 but as of March this year, she and Robinson had only co-hosted on a handful of occasions. Laura Maxwell of Good Morning Scotland - the show seems more sure of itself than Today (Image: free) Today also lost Husain after 11 years in the job. She is a journalist for whom the word brilliant is not too strong a superlative and far and away the best interviewer the programme had. Barnett's great strength lies in the attributes which made her a success at Woman's Hour, but nobody would describe her as a master of the political interview. Rajan co-hosts a political podcast with Robinson, but he's no replacement for Husain and he too has had his critics. Husain herself may even be among them though she's too polite to say so explicitly. But in an interview with Vogue which made headlines, she talked in guarded terms about her decision to leave the BBC and appeared to dismiss journalism she termed 'bombastic' and 'personality-driven'. 'It has never been part of what I do,' she said. 'It doesn't have to be about the presenters centring themselves.' Pushed for more by interviewer Nosheen Iqbal, she added: 'What was true to me was that I would very rarely use the word 'I' actually on air.' Guarded, sure, but it was enough for the Daily Mail. 'Mishal's veiled swipe' ran its headline, followed by: 'Who COULD she mean! Former Today programme star Mishal Husain uses first interview since BBC exit to decry 'bombastic' personality journalism and presenters who talk about themselves.' Then again, maybe more 'I' will be the thing which guarantees the futures of both Today and GMS and keeps them fit for purpose. The thing which tempers the criticisms that they're too boringly centrist and have no real character. The thing which ensures their efficacy as bulwarks against the upstart outlets and news channels which give politicians too easy a ride and don't ask the difficult questions. If not, the submarine captains of the future may still be listening – but Prime Ministers to come may not. Barry Didcock is an Edinburgh-based Herald writer and freelance journalist specialising in arts, culture and media. He can be found on X at @BarryDidcock
