2025 Wrap-Up

Dec 23, 2025

Hello,

Happy Christmas!

First, obligatory shilling. This month at THE ZONE I wrote about prejudice and power, Philip Larkin, crime statistics, foreign patronage, Westerners in Russia, the Christian grift, London, Rob Reiner and the meaning of life and the American right.

I wrote for The Critic about the British far left, the Olivia Nuzzi affair, British athletes, multicultural idealism, thought policing, disrespecting the dead and the British justice system.

I also wrote for The American Conservative about John Cena and Americana, the Telegraph about podcasts and the Washington Examiner about Werner Herzog.

It’s been another busy year. Looking through my archives, I see I wrote 104 pieces for THE ZONE (not counting monthly round-ups), 99 pieces for The Critic and a handful of pieces for other outlets. Granted, a lot of them were quite short. Not for the first time, I wish I’d written a few more longer and more lasting essays, but I can’t seem to shake my own writerly restlessness.

I hope you have enjoyed my stuff this year. I enjoy writing for you. Actually, it’s an enormous privilege. I consider myself extremely fortunate to be able to write and to be read.

If you’ll forgive me for a bit of extra shilling, I’d like to offer annual subscriptions to THE ZONE for just $40. I’m not going to pretend that this is because I’m feeling festively generous rather than because I want you to subscribe (and I’m certainly not going to make passive aggressive comparisons to the price of cups of coffee). But I like to think that it’s a pretty good deal.

In my work editing the website of The Critic it has been a pleasure helping — at least, I hope I’m helping — other writers to improve their work and get it published. It’s great to hear that Britain’s greatest Donald Trump impersonator Tom Jones has joined the team.

Away from work, I had a happy year, the highlight of which was getting engaged. I could have a publishing deal worth 10 books and £5,000,000 and it wouldn’t be a better reason to look forward to the future. But publishers are still invited to get in touch about those deals.

The world is obviously in a grim state in many ways, from hot wars to culture wars. While I am increasingly jaded when it comes to politics, I know it can be inescapable. But we should still take time to enjoy art, and nature, and relationships without their being darkened by political anxieties and conflicts — when it’s possible at least.

As is tradition for me, here (in no particular order) are my favourite pieces I have written in 2026 for outlets other than THE ZONE:

“Werner Herzog’s types of truth”, The Washington Examiner

“From cold to hot with Andrey Kurkov”, The Washington Examiner

“Not in Defense of Keir Starmer”, The American Conservative

“Britain Must Be More Honest With Itself”, Quillette

“You don’t hate him enough,” The Critic

“An unconvincing case for Israel”, The Critic

“The British right will not be socially conservative”, The Critic

“The inequality delusion”, The Critic

“The justice system is enabling criminals”, The Critic

“The irresistible rise of lolcows”, The Critic

Here (in no particular order) are my favourite pieces I have written for THE ZONE: