julie burchill returns

For those of you who, like me, had somehow missed the fact that Julie Burchill is now back writing for the Guardian... well, she is. So hurrah! A couple of new articles so far, and while they're not quite vintage Burchill, I'd take them over another Charlie Brooker column any day.

She loves Tesco, for example. "People who are against Tesco are the sort of people who, 50 years ago, would have been against labour-saving devices on the grounds that they might conceivably give women time to put their feet up, have a cup of tea and watch daytime telly for half an hour."

She hates self-pitying middle-class writers: "Graham Greene saw a writer's childhood as his capital; the same can be said of a writer's troubles, whether random or self-inflicted. Until recently, partly because they were determined to demonstrate their skill and partly because they didn't want to have people pointing and laughing at them, writers used to take life's little pile-ups and make bad, banal or brilliant fiction out of them. These days - obviously every bit as affected by me-me-me, I-want-it-now short-termism as any Jade Goody - lots of writers can't be arsed to do all that creative stuff any more; rather, they bang out a "memoir"."

And she hates pretentious actors: "A recent Daily Hell interview with the French actress Juliette Binoche was the cherry on the gateau. Fresh from laughing all the way to the banque with her cut of the very American Dan In Real Life, Binoche's remarks struck me as a great example of the prejudice that passes for politics in France. Get this. When cooking pancakes for the cast and crew, OF COURSE she had to have "real maple syrup sent over from Quebec" - nasty American stuff wouldn't do. (Sod the air miles!) And guess what one of the pretentious cow's favourite places is: "Iran is full of life and the history is very rich - we have to learn from them. They influenced all the philosophers when they first came to Europe. The Iranian women are like Italian women - they rule the house." Yep, it's one long picnic being a woman in Iran!"

The thing I like about Jules is the fact that I rarely agree with her, and yet always enjoy reading her - I know she drives people potty but I think she's great.