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The Simpsons has had its fair share of dumb controversies over the years, from the Bart Simpson T-shirt backlash of 1990, to President George H.W. Bush’s public condemnation of the show, to the time the nuclear power industry took issue with Springfield’s three-eyed fish.

Now, in the year 2025, The Spectator, the conservative U.K. magazine, has flat-out called the show “evil” in a new article. Has anyone checked to see if there’s a way to switch the series to “Good”?

“Marge Simpson is dead. But does anyone care?” begins the article titled “The Simpsons May Be Genius — But It's Also Evil.” After referencing the recent viral controversy involving Marge’s Simpson’s (bogus) death, the author, James Delingpole, notes that he’s a longtime fan of the show, specifically its (also bogus) knack for predicting real world events, such as the “Trump presidency.”

“I’m now beginning to...

As a Brit, I've always been fascinated by the huge array of regional dialects packed into a relatively small space on our islands. Every country has different accents, of course, but it's remarkable how an accent can change so dramatically in the U.K. over such short distances. Just listen to the difference between Scouse and Manc with only 35 miles separating Liverpool and Manchester. All our radically different accents provide fuel for endless banter, and everyone has their favorites and least favorites. Personally, I can listen to people from Newcastle, Yorkshire, and Wales talk all day, but I'm not a big fan of Essex (partly due to local rivalry as a Tractor Boy from Suffolk) and the Birmingham accent, or Brummie. 

Which brings us to "Peaky Blinders," the hugely popular BBC crime drama set in Birmingham in the early 20th century. That location makes the show something of an anomaly for British TV,...

What's more offensive: Quentin Tarantino's new film, a bad joke or a rightwing newspaper columnist?

I am a bit worried I might be a massive racist because last week at a preview screening* I laughed like a hallucinating pig several times during Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, a preposterous cartoon romp through the laugh-a-minute world of slavery.

It's insanely violent. In one shootout, so much blood gets sloshed across the screen it's a miracle a scab didn't form over the lens. Despite, or perhaps because of this, it also contains some of the funniest moments I've seen in ages. What it does, brilliantly, is to gradually heighten the tension until you forget you're watching a dumb exploitation flick and start to take it all terribly seriously, before suddenly exploding into the kind of wilful silliness you'd expect to see in a Python movie. It's three hours long, but feels far shorter,...