All socialists have bad backs because we slouch - except when we're watching the news when we sit on the edge of our seats, shout, and wave our arms. Generally we sit hunched, arms crossed in a judgemental way, the whole of our bodies pulled into a frown.

Jeremy Hardy

Categorized in : Body News Judgemental

Marriage is like the witness protection programme: you get all new clothes, you live in the suburbs, and you're not allowed to see your friends anymore.

Jeremy Hardy

protection clothes witness

My daughter wanted a new pair of trainers. I told her You're eleven, make your own!

Jeremy Hardy

eleven pairs daughter

It seems a shallow observation, but... the Tory Conference are not an attractive lot, are they? I mean, if all those people were born in the same village, you'd blame pollution, wouldn't you?

Jeremy Hardy

village mean people

The Afghan War has clearly reached a stage similar to that moment at your child's party where you realise you've forgotten to give the other parents a pick up time.

Jeremy Hardy

party war children

Most harm is done by people who are awake.

Jeremy Hardy

harm done people

The only way you can ever accuse a Conservative of hypocrisy is if they walk past a homeless person without kicking him in the face.

Jeremy Hardy

kicking hypocrisy past

If you just took everyone in the BNP and everyone who votes for them and shot them in the back of the head, there would be a brighter future for us all.

Jeremy Hardy

shots vote would-be

You can inherit male-pattern baldness from your mother's father, but not a tendency to fight in the First World War.

Jeremy Hardy

mother war father

Capitalism is a great idea in theory, but in practice it just doesn't work.

Jeremy Hardy

theory practice ideas

Why don't people just accept that life is sad and cheer up? After all, it's not going to last for ever.

Jeremy Hardy

lasts cheer people

Northern Ireland is part of Ireland, not Britain, as can clearly be seen from aerial photographs.

Jeremy Hardy

northern-ireland britain photograph

The need to compile lists is a personality disorder, as is the need to assert the superiority of some things over other things.

Jeremy Hardy

lists personality needs

I'm in the intriguing position of being a friend of Jeremy Corbyn and knowing him personally. It's quite a strange position to know somebody that's in the news and know the person who they're talking about and taking pictures of.

Jeremy Hardy

pictures friend know news

The thing that interests me most about family history is the gap between the things we think we know about our families and the realities.

Jeremy Hardy

think me family history

My idea of family is not dominated by blood ties. Families are fragile things, and I think it is social pressure and emotional attachments that keep them together.

Jeremy Hardy

think family pressure together

I think ageing suits me because I was born old, like Spencer Tracy or Dolly the Sheep.

Jeremy Hardy

think me suits born

The image of my face I hold in my mind is always about 10 years out of date.

Jeremy Hardy

image face always mind

Being in the latter stages of life means the morning is unkind to the reflection. It takes a few hours for the creases to fall out. By about 4 P.M., I look quite nice.

Jeremy Hardy

look reflection morning life

My maternal grandmother had what might be described in a school report as a 'lively imagination.' She told us that she was a direct descendant of Sir Christopher Wren.

Jeremy Hardy

she grandmother imagination school

For me, ancestry is just one thing that connects us to people, and feeling connected to other people is generally a good thing, as long as one kind of connection does not have primacy over all the others. Heredity, race and nationhood are not the best criteria by which to judge our fellow humans.

Jeremy Hardy

best good me people