Michael Bywater
Michael Bywater is a writer and critic and has been on the staff of the Independent on Sunday, The Observer and Punch. He is of The Chronicles of Bargepole, Big Babies and Lost Worlds.
Articles by Michael Bywater
The Prophet: a satire
Humanism has science, logic and polemics by the hatful. But what it needs is stories & someone to tell them
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Our Church? My arse
Roger Scruton argues that the Anglican church has played a vital role in forming England. That's not quite how Michael Bywater remembers it.
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Book Review: The Atheist’s Primer by Michael Palmer
If you're looking for a handy arsenal of arguments against religion this is the book for you, says Michael Bywater
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Book review: Crooked Talk by Jonathon Green
Michael Bywater finds that Jonathon Green is the aceman of lexicographers, and that's no honey-fuggle
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Today’s lesson
Reading the Bible did not awaken Michael Bywater's faith. But it did move him. Don’t tell Dawkins
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Inside the mind of Scientology’s Messiah
Twenty-five years after his death, Michael Bywater revisits the sacred texts of the pulp science writer turned prophet L Ron Hubbard
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Fair game?
350 million do it regularly. It offers levels of complexity and human interaction beyond any other art form. We can’t continue to ignore the cultural impact of online gaming, says Michael Bywater
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Life Inc: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back by Douglas Rushkoff
Michael Bywater takes on the corporations with Douglas Rushkoff
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The art of phwoar
Free websites like Pornhub mean that explicit sex films are only a click away. But are they any good? Michael Bywater offers a classical critique
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Caution, falling moguls
Is he a loser, a kvetcher, a fatalist or a comic genius? Michael Bywater goes in search of the real Woody Allen
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The Happiest Man in the World by Alec Wilkinson
Michael Bywater is in awe of Poppa Neutrino
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For Christ’s sake, it’s Christmas
An invitation from our editor to go for a "Winterval" drink left Michael Bywater hung up on semantics
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Karoo by Steve Tesich
Michael Bywater rediscovers a masterly comic tragedy
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Infantile disorder
Michael Bywater won't be joining the new atheists
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Goodbye to all that
Michael Bywater misses his ivory tower
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