January 22, 1957

Francis Wheen, an English writer and journalist with a gift for spotting the offbeat, was born January 22, 1957. He has done stints at most major British newspapers; The Guardian, New Statesman, Indpeendent on Sunday, Observer, and Evening Standard, is not a comprehensive list.

Some of his books:

The Sixties, (1982)
The Battle for London, (1985)
Television: a history, (1985)The Soul of Indiscretion: Tom Driberg, Poet, Philanderer, Legislator, and Outlaw ( 1990)
Hoo-Hahs and Passing Frenzies, (2002) [his columns collected]Strange Days Indeed: the golden age of paranoia, (2009)

and he edited:
The Chatto Book of Cats, 1993;
Lord Gnome’s Literary Companion, (1994).

You notice in Wheen's writing a decline from the offbeat to the cranky. It is not fatal, just interesting. I cite this book as proof, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions.(2005). This was  described as:

A savagely witty account of the last quarter century, when despite a great leap forward in technology there has been a huge, regressive collapse in our ability to think straight—so that everything has begun to stop making sense.  Even if the book is accurate, it can still be symptomatic.