In spiked this week

Can canned laughter
The BBC’s new sitcom Outnumbered wasn’t edgy or awkward enough to be aired without a laughter track.

"By the time you read this column, you will have either enjoyed or missed the opening episodes of the BBC’s new situation comedy, Outnumbered. This is because the Corporation took the unusual decision to screen it on successive nights this week, presumably to complement the programme’s overtly quirky nature...."

In The Catholic Herald

The Premiership is the Catholicism of Football

Charterhouse Chronicle, by Patrick West

If football is a religion, which denomination would it be?

In The Times

From The Times
August 21, 2007

Don’t take away risk – it’s much too risky
Patrick West: Thunderer
"Overprotective parenting, the banning of school trips and chemistry experiments, the outlawing of conker fights in the playground . . . our fear of letting our children take any sort of risk can be seen again and again. But the idea that it is possible to banish risk is not only itself infantile, it also puts children in even greater physical danger. In short, risk avoidance can be a risky business..."

In spiked this week

Patrick West
We Brits invented ‘friendly fire’
"Today's cheap critiques of the US military for its ‘friendly fire’ blunders in Iraq overlook Britain’s own disastrous history of killing its own..."

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NM