The Intelligent Punter's Guide to the 2013 U.S. Open golf

156 golfers tee off today in the US Open at Merion: which of them are worth backing to win it?

You can read my Guide to the US Open here. Good luck with your selections!

'If you're in NATO you can get away with murder'

As events in Turkey prove to us once again....

Above you can watch a new interview with me on RT on why western criticism of Erdogan's brutal clampdown on protestors in Turkey has all been rather muted. More on this story here.

Regime-change case for Poirot: Syria conflict as ‘whodunnit?'

This new piece of mine appears over at the RT Op-Edge website.

'The ABC Murders' comes to my mind every time I think of Libya and Syria and the ‘Arab Spring.’ When do you notice an individual 'regime change' least? Answer: When it is in a series of 'regime changes'.

"When do you notice a pin least? When it is in a pin cushion! When do you notice an individual murder least? When it is one of a series of related murders".

So declares the great Belgian detective Hercule Poirot as he unveils the murderer in Agatha Christie's classic mystery 'The ABC Murders'.

You can read the whole piece here

‘UK govt lining up with Islamist radicals in Syria’

Above you can watch an interview with me on RT on the UK's neo-con government's policies towards Syria. The bully boys of Britain and France got the EU to end their arms embargo-opening the way for direct supplies of arms to 'rebel' groups. More on this story here.

The Left vs. the Liberal Media

This piece of mine appears in the anti-war magazine The American Conservative

How Media Lens debunks the BBC’s humanitarian interventionists


It all started in July 2001 when two men, concerned about bias in the corporate news media in the UK, began to send out “media alerts” to a small number of family and friends. Twelve years on and Media Lens—the brainchild of writer David Edwards, a former manager in sales and marketing, and David Cromwell, a physicist by background—has established itself as the UK’s media watchdog. There’s no doubting the impact they have made. “Without their meticulous and humane analysis, the full gravity of the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan might have been consigned to bad journalism’s first draft of bad history,” is the verdict of veteran reporter and filmmaker John Pilger.

You can read the whole piece here. (and check out the neo-con cyber-stalking in the comments thread.)

Erdogan has brought the war to Turkey by backing the Syrian rebels

Above you can watch an interview with me on RT on the growing protests in Turkey against the Turkish government's stance towards Syria. More on this story here.

The Intelligent Punter's Guide to the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest

Just a few hours to go before this year's Eurovision. Here's my Intelligent Punter's guide to this year's contest from The Week.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again. Time to put our Euro-scepticism on hold and watch as twenty six European nations- well twenty-six nations that are the part of European Broadcasting Network- compete to see who can win the  annual Eurovision Song Contest. To help you enjoy Saturday evening’s proceedings even more, why not have a few bets on the event? Backing the winner of a 26 runner race might seem a daunting prospect but Eurovision is not the punter’s minefield it might first appear.

You can read the whole piece here.

On the subject of Eurovision, here's my piece from the Daily Express on UK contestant Bonnie Tyler, rock's comeback queen.