I mentioned last month how many people it takes to coarsen a culture. Another example lies in the children’s section of a bookshop in which I am searching for a suitable gift. The Game of Thrones colouring book is worth reflecting on for a moment. Anybody familiar with the series will know that whatever excuses can be made for it—and there are several—it is unrelentingly sexual and violent: a television drama for the age of IS. What child of colouring-book age could have seen such a show?
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Speaking of box-sets, the seemingly immortal Clive James has a new book out on the genre, Play All (Yale, £14.99), which I bought and gulped down—like a box-set—in nearly one go. The BBC’s Newsnight ran an interview with the author, headlining the event with the announcement that they had an interview with Clive James, who has in the past had marital fidelity problems. The interviewer asked Clive about his new book, and about dying and then got onto what was clearly the aim of the interview: intrusive questions about his private life which had nothing to do with the subject at hand. Clive deftly and politely swerved, but who precisely did Newsnight think they were appealing to here? Did they think they might attract some crossover from Heat magazine if only they could get Clive to talk sex?
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In September the National Secular Society had their annual conference and I was invited to speak. As it drew closer, they day began to fill me with dread. What on earth will I say to them? As it turns out I am on a panel with my comrades Maajid Nawaz and Raheel Raza. I explain to the secularists that, were it not for the subject Maajid, Raheel and I spend a lot of time talking about, their society would be a quaint social gathering which had outlived any purpose. There is a slight intake of breath before I assure them that given the subject under discussion they instead find themselves on the front line of the most important battle of our time. The audience breathes out. Afterwards, I speak with an atheist from Somalia, a secularist from Saudi Arabia and numerous apostates from Pakistan. It’s all rather wonderful. “Thank you for going easy on us secularists,” someone says on the way out, leading me to wonder whether the organisers had feared my appearance more than I did.
***
Speaking of box-sets, the seemingly immortal Clive James has a new book out on the genre, Play All (Yale, £14.99), which I bought and gulped down—like a box-set—in nearly one go. The BBC’s Newsnight ran an interview with the author, headlining the event with the announcement that they had an interview with Clive James, who has in the past had marital fidelity problems. The interviewer asked Clive about his new book, and about dying and then got onto what was clearly the aim of the interview: intrusive questions about his private life which had nothing to do with the subject at hand. Clive deftly and politely swerved, but who precisely did Newsnight think they were appealing to here? Did they think they might attract some crossover from Heat magazine if only they could get Clive to talk sex?
***
In September the National Secular Society had their annual conference and I was invited to speak. As it drew closer, they day began to fill me with dread. What on earth will I say to them? As it turns out I am on a panel with my comrades Maajid Nawaz and Raheel Raza. I explain to the secularists that, were it not for the subject Maajid, Raheel and I spend a lot of time talking about, their society would be a quaint social gathering which had outlived any purpose. There is a slight intake of breath before I assure them that given the subject under discussion they instead find themselves on the front line of the most important battle of our time. The audience breathes out. Afterwards, I speak with an atheist from Somalia, a secularist from Saudi Arabia and numerous apostates from Pakistan. It’s all rather wonderful. “Thank you for going easy on us secularists,” someone says on the way out, leading me to wonder whether the organisers had feared my appearance more than I did.
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