u/SwiftieNewRomantics

Children’s literature is full of bears. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re brave, sometimes they’re downright heroic. But the best-known of all, beating Rupert and Winnie, Yogi and Baloo, must be Paddington Bear, created by Michael Bond in 1958.

Paddington has become the quintessential Briton. He’s found at a railway station. He speaks in Received Pronunciation (RP). He loves marmalade and he wears a Duffel coat. (These were originally Belgian, but in Britain we adopted them when we had a surplus after the Second World War.) For 68 years, Paddington has become cherished through literature, radio, television, the stage and – biggest of all – the screen, where the three feature films so far have grossed over £600m.

In recent years, though, Paddington has also become a mascot for the Centrist Dad. He’s the living embodiment of how the urban middle classes view refugees: cuddly, polite, heroic, misunderstood by villains on the Right. The Lib Dem-ification of Paddington reached new heights in 2022 when the chief whip of the Party joked that the bear should become the ethics adviser to then-prime minister Boris Johnson.

And who can forget the twee comedy sketch, near the end of Elizabeth II’s life, in which the late Queen and Paddington shared tea at Buckingham Palace? (Not to mention the wildly popular meme of the duo, when Elizabeth died months later, showing them walking hand-in-hand to the pearly gates?)

Please Look After This Bear, a new book by academics Melanie Ramdarshan Bold and Aishwarya Subramanian, asks “how Paddington became British”, and what that really means. They analyse a vast array of Paddington “content”, including interviews with Bond himself and others, and argue that Paddington has become crucial to any understanding of British identity.

In fact, he may be its pinnacle. “Britishness isn’t just about where you’re from, but how you behave,” they write. “Bring your best manners and a jar of marmalade, and you’re halfway there.” He’s the version of Britishness that those in power like to project, and that makes him as much a soft-power tool as the BBC: “Visitors arriving in Britain’s international airports are likely to meet Paddington before any immigration officer.” Anyone assailed by massive advertisements as they trudge off an easyJet flight will know this all too well.

Bond himself, it’s true, was inspired by refugees. He saw young British evacuees with “a label round their neck” passing through Reading, en route to safe houses in the countryside. His family took in Jewish children from the Kindertransport, that heroic effort to rescue the youngest victims of Nazi barbarism. He served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, as Ramdarshan Bold and Subramanian detail, and “witnessed a ship packed with Jewish refugees heading to Palestine”. Paddington Bear, according to the author himself, is “a refugee, and I do think that there’s no sadder sight than refugees”.

But Please Look After This Bear, having cited all these facts, tries to advance the framework, repositioning Paddington as a Windrush-generationincomer instead. Ramdarshan Bold and Subramanian point out that the bear made his first appearance in 1958, just months after the Notting Hill riots. Paddington comes to live with the Brown family at Windsor Gardens, slap bang in the middle of Notting Hill and Portobello Road. To shift the focus away from the Jewish refugees of the Holocaust is an interesting choice, and perhaps necessary for Please Look After This Bear, since Ramdarshan Bold and Subramanian’s central argument hinges on what they call Bond’s “quietly colonial logic”.

And that logic doesn’t always intrude. When it sticks to titbits, Please Look After This Bear is fascinating. Paddington’s RP accent was not assigned to him by Bond; the author, instead, envisaged him having the “high-pitched, gruff voice” of an elderly German man, or, failing that, the “Indian English of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, spiritual adviser to the Beatles”. We learn of how Bond and his daughter almost fell out after she – the former managing director of Paddington & Company, which owned the rights to his image until 2016 – decided to “betray” her father’s dedication to marmalade by allowing Paddington to appear in a Marmite advert. In 2024, after a request from film producers for a replica, the Home Office, showing a surprising sense of humour, issued a real passport for a fictional bear.

Inevitably, however, and much like Paddington himself, these snippets of history come with baggage. You might think it nice to learn that the people of Japan were among the bear’s greatest initial fans: not only did they show their support by buying Bond’s books, but they wrote to the author to ask what Paddington’s uncle Pastuzo did for a living. Ramdarshan Bold and Subramanian cite Bond’s wry suggestion, in response, that this bombardment of “questions no one had ever asked before” was proof of the Japanese being “nothing if not thorough”. They then decry his words as being “laced with Orientalist tropes”.

Please Look After This Bear is packed with such undergraduate-level complaints. Paddington’s “brownness is deracialised”, we learn: he “never unsettles whiteness”, but instead offers up a “bear-shaped balm for a nation grappling with its imperial ghosts”. He’s the “good immigrant”, the one that plays along and says “please” and “thank you” even when his host country treats him poorly by locking him up, ignoring him or (in Mr Curry’s case) calling him names out of the window.

Ramdarshan Bold and Subramanian seem to want to have their marmalade sandwich and eat it. In their view, Paddington is everything a mean-spirited, Brexit-voting Briton should aspire to become and yet, with those same attributes, he’s also a disappointing, even neutered, caricature of what immigrants “should” be. Even his renaming from his Peruvian original – he was Pastuzo, after his uncle – is held up as a sin. “The burden of linguistic accommodation falls, as ever, on the immigrant.”

This approach would be trivially irritating, except that it hobbles the book’s attempts at political analysis. Brexit was “marked by hostile-environment policies and deepening divisions”, which may seem reductive, if not jaundiced, to the majority of voters who supported it. The 2024 riots were simply “a wave of far-Right protest, unrest and violence, much of it stoked by anti-immigrant and Islamophobic sentiment”; it’s unhelpful not to explain what happened in Southport, who Axel Rudakubana was, what the rioters believed (wrongly or not), and so on.

It becomes clear that Please Look After This Bear has little interest in why other people have other views, and sometimes even act upon them. Mr Curry, one of the few Britons in Bond’s stories who doesn’t fawn over Paddington, is described as “an echo of Powell, Thatcher, Farage”, who are lumped together as “a chorus of exclusion”. This is a book for people who want to wish the Conservatives away, and prefer a Paddington world in which pesky political issues are solved with a nice cup of tea.

Children’s literature is often fertile ground for cultural analysis, reflecting the world-view that society wants to instil in its children. And Paddington is a rich text: an intriguing story about a talking bear who’s funny and chaotic and lovable, and who – to my eyes, as a child of immigrants myself – pokes fun at the constipated Englishness of his new home. There’s plenty to examine here, and Ramdarshan Bold and Subramanian have some good criticisms to make of that vague placeholder, “British values”.

But it seems ludicrous that a book about the little refugee bear, and at a time when he’s a more popular symbol than ever, refuses to take the contemporary politics of immigration seriously. Does Paddington exist merely to teach a population of heartless Britons to “be kind”? What might Conservatives, or Reform voters – if the authors can even imagine them as readers – make of his complex symbolism? Perhaps, I thought, someone needs to remind Ramdarshan Bold and Subramanian that, however often he and his niceness may be shoved in our faces, Paddington Bear isn’t a person. He’s just a fantasy.

Some of the wilder claims made by Jason Arday, such as running 30 marathons in 35 days and separately raising more than £5.5 million for charity, were watered down by his publisher long before the scandal broke.

The publishing company Simon & Schuster removed biographical references about Arday’s alleged athletic feats and his fundraising accomplishments from his author’s page on its website, according to archived web pages.

Simon & Schuster has insisted it will go ahead with the publication of the former University of Cambridge professor’s memoir despite the ongoing furore. It is due to come out on August 27.

Between May 19 and July 25 last year, the claim that Arday had run “30 marathons in 35 days, 300 miles in three days and 600 miles in six days” was erased from his author’s page on the company’s website, as was a reference to the scholar raising “over £5.5 million pounds for 80 national charities over a 20-year period.”

Instead, this segment of Arday’s biography was changed to say he had “raised millions of pounds for charity”. The edits suggest the publisher may have been aware of inconsistencies in Arday’s life story before suspicions were publicly raised about the veracity of his achievements in recent weeks.

Arday, 41, who was the youngest black person ever appointed to a professorship in Cambridge’s history, is being investigated by the university over claims of academic misconduct. He has been accused of plagiarising parts of the PhD dissertation he wrote in 2015, which he denies, and fabricating his academic qualifications. 

Several university academics have called for an independent inquiry into how Arday, a sociology of education professor, was appointed. He resigned from his position last week, saying “the personal cost” of media scrutiny had become “too great” and that he no longer wished to live “under a constant spotlight”.

The Sunday Times can reveal that several Cambridge academics appear to have since withdrawn their support for Arday, having signed a petition that accused the media of “trying to smear him with fake accusations of plagiarism”.

Sonita Alleyne, the first woman to lead Jesus College, where Arday worked, Sir Simon Philip Baron-Cohen, a professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge, and Ricardo Sabates Aysa, a professor of education and international development, have all had their names removed from a “solidarity letter” launched by the Good Law Project, which has provided the scholar with support, archived web pages show.

It comes after Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu, the president of Wolfson College, withdrew her name.

Alleyne and Aysa refused to comment when approached by The Sunday Times. Baron-Cohen, an expert in autism, did not respond. In a previous statement on July 31, he expressed his support for Arday, who has autism, and said he was being “systematically discredited” in targeted attacks which risked damaging his mental health.

Simon & Schuster was approached on Saturday afternoon but did not respond to questions about why the edits were made to Arday’s author’s page and by whom. 

However, several of Arday’s most outlandish claims have been omitted from the memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, it has since emerged.

His running 600 miles in six days challenge is not mentioned, early reviews of the book indicate. Only three male runners have ever managed such a feat, according to modern records. References to Arday’s fundraising efforts, meanwhile, are alluded to but no definitive figure is given.

The Times reported last week that Arday claimed in a book proposal for the memoir to have had testicular cancer and locked-in syndrome and to have almost died in a car accident when he was a teenager. These references have not been included in the book.

In April, a spokesperson for Simon & Schuster said: “I can promise you’ve never read a story like this — even the viral news headlines don’t do it justice.”

Last week it was reported that Arday had previously told The Guardian that he had been offered “1.4m” for the book. The offer was made as part of a “pre-empt” deal.

Arday has a degree from the University of Surrey, a master’s from St Mary’s University in London, and a PhD in education awarded by Liverpool John Moores University.

Before joining Cambridge, Arday was employed as professor of sociology of education at the University of Glasgow, from January 2022 to March 2023. A university spokesperson announced on Friday evening that it had commissioned a “review” into his appointment “with the aim of understanding all the facts and learning lessons for the future”.

He also worked at Durham University between 2019 and 2021. Lisa McKenzie, a senior lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire, was employed alongside Arday during this period and, in a social media post on Friday evening, questioned whether Durham would also open an investigation into her former colleague.

“I was employed with Jason Arday at Durham,” she said on X. “The way Arday was treated by some of the academics in that department was embarrassing, like he was a messiah.”

When asked what he was like as a colleague, she replied: “Nice actually — polite and gentle but obviously a bit off-key in some of the things he said, a bit like a guru. He once said in a meeting he was most proud of his hair which he got from his white grandma — looking back, I don’t think that was true.”

I won’t name the person or where to find it, but you might have heard already a certain relatively high profile person live-streamed themselves hurting themselves, quite graphically. People are decrying this person doing it while still sharing either the video or screen grab. Why?? It’s awful. The person needs and is now getting help. It makes me sick, I really didn’t need to see it.

A Cambridge professor hailed as a diversity poster boy claimed that he had featured in Seven Up decades before he was born.

Prof Jason Arday said he had appeared in the TV series, which follows the lives of a group of people for decades from the age of seven.

The inaugural episode was broadcast in 1964. He was not born until 1985.

Prof Arday is at the centre of a row about academic plagiarism after The Telegraph revealed that he has been accused of copying parts of his PhD thesis from an earlier work by another student.

He has admitted a series of errors in his work but said the “positioning of me as this kind of liar and fantasist is totally unacceptable”.

Now footage of a talk Prof Arday gave in October 2022 has re-emerged, revealing his claim that he appeared as a child on Seven Up.

He told the University of Bath’s Race Equality Taskforce: “I was part of a programme, actually, which – it doesn’t really exist any more – but it was called Seven Up at the time.

“And Seven Up is basically when they follow you over the duration of your life, so they follow you at [ages] 7, 14, 21. I was pulled out of the project when I was 14.”

During the same talk, he also claimed: “I had just turned 18 when I learnt to read and write.”

Seven Up was the first episode in a decades-long TV series created by Granada Productions for ITV.

The series follows 14 people’s lives at seven-year intervals, beginning when they were seven years of age. The final instalment is expected to be broadcast later this year.

The inaugural episode was broadcast in 1964, meaning its subjects were born in 1957. Subsequent programmes have been titled 21 Up, 28 Up and so on as the participants have grown older.

The BBC also commissioned a spin-off series titled Up: Millennium Generation. This began in 2000, also featuring a group of seven-year-olds. At the time, Prof Arday would have been 15.

A BBC spokesman said: “We can confirm he was nothing to do with our films.”

Prof Arday was hailed as the youngest-ever black professor at Cambridgewhen he was appointed at the age of 37.

Yet recent analysis of the sociology of education professor’s thesis showed that more than 180 passages were identical or near-identical to another student’s thesis.

Since then, questions have been raised over his academic record, as well as his claims to have been a multi-million-pound charity fundraiser through his athletic endeavours.

In an interview with The Times, Prof Arday admitted a series of errors in his work but attributed some to his autism, explaining that his method of making sense of information had relied heavily on mimicry.

He has also claimed to have run 30 marathons in 35 days, the final nine of them with a broken leg. The professor also said he had played both football and snooker professionally.

“I can’t make people believe me,” he said. “Nobody lives their life having a receipt for every single thing they say or they’ve done.”

He insisted that he had been subjected to a “dark arts” campaign.

Both Prof Arday and Cambridge University were contacted for comment.

Where to get blonde highlights, pleas for help finding a car at the Eiffel Tower and places to watch the World Cup are among some of the strangest calls to UK embassies and consulates from Britons abroad seeking advice.

The Foreign Office has released some of its most unusual requests for assistance from Britons overseas, which include one holidaymaker in Egypt who asked the embassy to do something about the temperature of the showers at their hotel. 

Its staff have seen a rise in football-related enquiries during the World Cup, with one caller in Italy asking where they could watch the Scotland v Haiti group game in Milan.

With England set to face Norway in Saturday night’s quarter-final clash, the Foreign Office is urging Britons overseas to check what assistance it can offer before getting in touch.

Fraser McDougall, the head of the consular contact centre, said: “We are always happy to do what we can to help out Brits abroad where possible. While we can’t help with retrieving lost cars or where to watch the football, we’re proud of the support we provide to over a quarter of a million Brits each year.”

Among some of the strangest calls it has received was a Briton in Georgia who called the Foreign Office to see if their two pets could be granted British citizenship to guarantee diplomatic protection. 

In another call, an individual planning to visit the UK asked their local embassy for help to book Royal Ascot tickets. 

One caller contacted the embassy in Paris asking how much duck pâté they could bring into the UK, while a holidaymaker in Nigeria asked the embassy for help in get a refund for an unsatisfactory meal they had eaten at an Abuja restaurant.

In one of the most bizarre requests, a Briton in Jordan asked the embassy if they knew where they could get blonde highlights. 

British embassies and consulates overseas have received more than 328,000 enquiries and requests for help over the past year.

No 20. Up the Elephant and Round the Castle (ITV, 1983-85)
No 19. Don’t Drink the Water (ITV, 1974-75)
No 18. The Royal Bodyguard (BBC, 2011-12)
No 17. ‘Orrible (BBC, 2001)
No 16. Chalk (BBC, 1997)
No 15. The Wright Way (BBC, 2013)
No 14. Sir Yellow (ITV, 1973)
No 13. Sam’s Game (ITV, 2001)
No 12. Slinger’s Day (ITV, 1986-87)
No 11. Heil Honey I’m Home! (BSB, 1990)
No 10. Odd Man Out (ITV, 1977)
No 9. Plaza Patrol (ITV, 1991)
No 8. Yus My Dear (ITV, 1976)
No 7. Piglets (ITV, 2024-26)
No 6. Come Back Mrs Noah (BBC1, 1978)
No 5. Love Thy Neighbour (ITV, 1972-76)
No 4. Mrs Brown’s Boys (BBC One, 2011-ongoing)
No 3. Bottle Boys (ITV, 1984-85)
No 2. Big Top (BBC One, 2009)
No 1. In for a Penny (ITV, 1972)

The only ones I'm aware of from this list is Piglets and Mrs Brown's Boys.

Switch 2 version seems reasonably accessible, but the PlayStation 5 version is out of stock everywhere and pre owned prices are very high. Apparently it’s out of print already? Very annoyed with myself I didn’t buy it when it was affordable.