Jordan Peterson, Utilita Arena Birmingham, 14 September 2022
Driving past Birmingham is something I do a fair bit. Driving into Birmingham is something I do far less often, but when your favourite public intellectual – like, ever – Jordan Peterson is speaking, it has to be done. Even when you are charged £17.50 for parking by paying in advance (only on arriving do you realise you could have paid half that amount on the day) and you spend £13.79 for a modest Mac and Cheese and a lemonade at a nearby pub, the latter which you knock over the moment you sit down, leaving yourself with one tiny mouthful. Anyway, on with the show, which was scheduled to start at 7.30 but actually started at 7.45 presumably because of the snaking queues to get in. I looked around at my fellow Jordanites. They looked at me back. We were all wondering what kind of crowd goes to see Professor Peterson. The answer was: completely normal, perfectly fine people, some dressed to the nines, some in shorts. (Sigh, if I must go down this route: yes, they were mostly white –