Alexandra Naylor reports on this year’s strawberries and Pimm’s fuelled Wimbledon Championships
It’s Wimbledon again – the oldest and most prestigious tennis championship in the world. (more…)
Tag: broadcaster
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The BBC’s charitable activities are a mess
Another nail in the coffin for the BBC
The BBC’s annual Comic Relief is a charity fundraiser that has raised over £750 million. Though there is much about it that is commendable, revelations that £150 million was invested in arms dealing firms and tobacco companies and lost £800,000 on a failed venture involving Gordon Ramsay will undoubtedly anger the public. (more…)
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The Hon. Nigella Lawson
A self-proclaimed “Domestic Goddess”, Lawson was rebranded a “habitual criminal” during the trial of her two former assistants in November 2013. In an email quoted during the case, her ex-husband, Charles Saatchi, nicknamed her “Higella” and alleged his wife “poisoned [her] child with drugs and trashed her life”. In response, amongst those who leapt to Lawson’s defence on Twitter were Tom Parker Bowles, Rosa Monckton and Piers Morgan. Though the image of Saatchi throttling Lawson at Scott’s in Mayfair is undoubtedly one of the most shocking published in 2013, this cookery writer and presenter’s last biscuit may have just been baked given American viewer’s distaste for drug abuse. -
Katherine “Kate” Mosse OBE
This author and co-founder of the Orange Prize for Literature must often find people confusing her with the model of the same name. Most famous for her international bestseller novel Labyrinth, Mosse is a lynchpin of the “Chichester set”. She has an honorary degree from her hometown’s university and set up the Chichester Writing Festival with her fellow writer husband, Greg. This author has written all of her books in a chair that she bought for £50 in a junk shop and is also a regular guest presenter for BBC Radio 4’s A Good Read. -
Alan Whicker CBE (1925 – 2013)
Where will the world be without Whicker’s World? The answer: “A hell of a lot poorer”. Born in Egypt, this “broadcasting genius” shot footage of the body of Benito Mussolini during the Second World War before beginning a career interviewing the likes of John Paul Getty, the Sultan of Brunei, ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier and Peter Sellers. A jokey rap, delivered in his style and calld the Wikka Wrap, made the top 20 in 1981 and of an encounter with a television executive at an awards dinner once commented: “She was livid, and said, ‘You’re a fucking icon’ – which struck me as an excellent title for my next book”. -
Margaret Thatcher: Strong lady, weak men
Author Sarah Tucker shares her thoughts on the reaction to the death of Margaret Thatcher
I can’t really remember much about when Maggie Thatcher was in power. I know my parents were full of praise for her because our country was almost third world when she became PM, strikes crippling industries, rubbish being left on the streets and she broke the unions – something that was thought impossible. She stood up to them and it took a lot of courage to do so.
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Richard Littlejohn
Essex born journalist Richard Littlejohn claims that the Royal Family are a “bunch of tax-evading adulterers” (more…) -
Bird on a wire
Sarah Tucker tries out Britain’s scariest new attraction
80mph, approximately a mile long, 700 foot above a mountain lake, under clear blue skies in Snowdonia: Today, I became Wonder Woman for 55 seconds.
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The truth about Mother’s Day
Travel writer Sarah Tucker shares her views on Mother’s Day
Happy Mother’s Day to all you wonderful women who have given birth to little gems. I feel a bit like a travel writer stating: “The people here are all very friendly” when I write that, because although it’s mostly true, it’s not always true.
As someone who has written about travelling with children for nearly fifteen years, really since I was pregnant with my son, and written about the politics of the playground, which is nothing to do with the kids at all, just the issues of the parents, I’m not sure if I actually like children.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my own, he is the centre of my universe, but over the years I’ve met children who I felt were going to make the most appalling adults. Those adages, “mine will be different”, and “they will grow out of it”, don’t happen. Yours turn out to be the same, and they get worse.
And, they always blame the mothers. That’s after they blame the media, the council worker, the government, the lack of nutrients in food, the teachers, the lack of discipline in the home, too much TV, too many computer games, violence, alcohol and celebrity culture. In fact, a whole melting pot of things are generally blamed for the awfulness of any child. This is unfair.
I recently produced a YouTube video of the top ten types of mums and I’ve done one for dads, but I had to tone it down because ‘they’ felt it might be too negative. It wasn’t. It was spot on. In fact, it was tamed down.
But dads are rarely, if ever, laid to blame for their own failures let alone that of their children. No one is to blame for their own failures and that’s the problem. No one takes responsibility. Actually no. Women usually tend to believe everything is their fault, and men tend to believe everything is everyone else’s fault, so I’m sure that’s why men and women get on as well and as long as they do. Men think their failures are everyone else’s fault – but mainly their mothers.
I’m sure Freud said as much somewhere but I’m not sure. These ones also tend to marry their mothers or ‘motherly’ types’, divorce when they’re not being mothered anymore – because their wives have given birth and have genuine children to look after and proceed to look for women who a) can’t have kids b) have grown up kids and c) are able and willing to dote on them the way their mothers never did… or did too much.
So, I say, Happy Mother’s Day, to all of those who have children and those who have children as partners.
Sarah Tucker is an award winning travel journalist, novelist, producer and broadcaster. She has edited, produced and presented her own radio and TV series as well as presenting reports for BBC Holiday Programme and anchored I Want That House on ITV. She is the author of best selling novels The Playground Mafia (short listed for the Good Housekeeping book of the year 2007) The Battle for Big School, The Last Year of Being Single, and The Control Freak Chronicles.
For more information about Sarah Tucker, go to: http://www.sarahtucker.info
Buy The Playground Mafia on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Playground-Mafia-Sarah-Tucker/dp/0099498456/ref=sr_1_7/202-9265101-5575054?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193856472&sr=1-7
Follow Sarah Tucker on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/madasatucker
