Let me start off with a few important disclaimers:

1. I do not hate children.

2. I fully intend to have / adopt children one day.

3. If I thought having children was easy, I would have done it a long time ago, and I would have had five...

The thing which no one seems willing to say about Girls is that it's shit.

Yeah, I've read everything else. It's not representative. True. It's about whiny, rich, white girls. True. All the actresses are related to famous people. True. People don't

As both a journalist who occasionally freelances for the mainstream media, and an Occupier, I find myself in a conflicted position regarding reporting on Occupy LA.

My personal affinity towards the movement means that I am loathe to write about it in the mainstream media with any...

It's no surprise that we nice middle-class Liberals are finding our previous unwavering sympathy for the poor and the dispossessed giving way instead to fear, to hatred, to mockery, and to disappointment.

It's either the government's fault, the police's fault - or when they're hammering away at your Prius...

The Creative Writing MFA is the singularly most devastating occurrence to hit literature in the 20th century, churning out writers of utterly indistinguishable competence.

I'm referring, of course, to the news that the Orange Prize has been won by Tea Obreht, the "youngest ever recipient"...

I just deleted my twitter account.

As the exceptional Paul Carr pointed out in a techcrunch article, microblogging turns a writer into a self-absorbed arse with nothing left to show for it aside from a stream of inanities which have recorded nothing about your life except what an...

The saddest thing about living in LA is how quickly you become immune to the freakshow parading around Robertson, encapsulated on The Hills, immortalized in weekly glossies. I'll defend it when I get back to the UK. "No, not everyone's had plastic surgery," "It's really quite a normal place to...

They spend hours getting coiffed and air-brushed, they pose in teeny bikinis and evening gowns which resemble Manhattan stripper wear (I should know), they pose for sultry, sexy photoshoots which, apparently, are to assure the general public that, "You can have brains and be smart and... still be sexy"......

After working on the Obama campaign, Britain's elections are a little more disappointing. They're the premature ejaculation of politics: you're given four weeks to prepare, a day to vote, and the next day the Prime Minister is rudely ejected from No. 10 and a new one installed. No year of...

Gordon Brown's '30 Rock' moment was sublime. Like Liz Lemon ranting while still on mic, Gordon smiled and told the widowed Mrs Duffy, a confused Labour voter from Rochdale he had just visited, to "take care," before clambering into the back of his limo to complain of the visit,...

Dear Persistent Man,

You may think you have charmed me, but I assure you my polite smile and the fact I have reluctantly allowed you to buy me a coffee does not mean you have me fooled. Smiling in England is, in fact, a reflexive attempt to disguise disgust, a...

I have a twin sister. We shared a womb, a gender and eyes which have been described as "like rugby balls." However, when we were around three years old, my sister declined to wear female underwear, and insisted on dressing in what we Brits refer to as 'Y-fronts' - men's...

Immigrants might be able to vote one day!

And that would be a tragedy, according to our conservative friends on either side of the pond.

Over in the US corner, we have those who are convinced that legalizing immigrants will lead to greater strain upon the tremendous entitlement programs...

The Guardian newspaper recently published their Ten Rules for Writing Fiction. Inspired by Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, they asked a selection of published authors to enlighten the aspiring public with their tips on how to write. Given that more Britons dream of becoming a writer...

My most memorable flight was one in which I was pinioned between two obese men for twelve hours. Because of their mammoth-like proportions, both immediately lifted the arm rests after take off, oozed further onto my seat, and promptly fell asleep. I was trapped for the duration of the flight,...

I haven't ever dated anyone younger than myself. My last boyfriend was sixteen years older than me. The guy before that eight years older. 'Older' men - and by older, I mean men in their late thirties, early forties - are excellent to date because they are racked with insecurities...

I find my home country, the United Kingdom, depressingly antagonistic when it comes to the subject of stripping and strip clubs. Research has linked strip clubs to rape! Violence! Sex trafficking! Prostitution! Burlesque is mere misognyny packaged in a feather boa and push-up bra!

I've written elsewhere...

Yet another young starlet felled far too young: whether by heart disease, diabetes, Vicodin or an ominous British husband has yet to be determined. What Brittany Murphy's death stirs up, though, is an odd disquiet, a sense of unease, sadness, suspicion: the same kind of feelings we had...

I told my therapist I was feeling lonely the other day. She looked at me in surprise and said, "But you're always hanging out with friends." I replied that some of the people I hung out with, I didn't actually like. I was just filling the deep but inevitable hole...

California has tired of toy dogs! Besieged by cutesy images depicting Chihuahuas as timid, trembling creatures with a penchant for pink designer wardrobes and vacuous owners - think Paris Hilton, Beverly Hills Chihuahua and the annoying girl from Legally Blonde - Chihuahuas became the pet of choice on...