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The Londoner: I was victim of ‘racist attack’ in London, says Uncle Roger comedian

<p>Nigel Ng (Uncle Roger)</p> (Nigel Ng (Uncle Roger))

Nigel Ng (Uncle Roger)

(Nigel Ng (Uncle Roger))

Nigel Ng, a Malaysian-born Londoner who has become one of the UK’s biggest comedy stars during lockdown, has spoken out after a suspected racist attack on his street.

Ng, who plays Uncle Roger in online sketches, was assaulted near his Hammersmith home last month by a man saying “you know what you did”. “Police officers agreed that it most likely was a hate crime,” he told The Londoner, warning that racism against Asians had gone up this year.

“It’s well-documented, I think mostly because of Covid,” Ng said, but added it was a “small minority” of people. “Londoners, we’re multicultural, we’re still nice to each other,” he said.

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The sketches, featuring a harsh but fair older relative who is obsessed with food, have gone viral this year. Ng has 2.7 million followers on YouTube, and a million on Instagram. His first video was released in July.

He is now stopped in the street in London and Sweden, and expects attention in Malaysia, where friends say even the character’s trademark orange polo shirt is a talking point.

Ng said the idea for Uncle Roger came to him when he asked pals to talk about their parents for his podcast. "I was just asking around my friends, 'show me a picture of your dads'" he said. "A bright coloured garish polo was a common choice and I just started riffing out the character."

He objected to the idea that Uncle Roger's strong accent perpetuates Asian stereotypes, instead saying he is "reclaiming" a way of speaking. "I think it depends on the intention the person has while doing it" "If it was a white person trying to mock... that would be racist but for me it's part of the character" he said. "People from Asia like it because it reminds them of their relatives".

Ng, who is from Kuala Lumpur, then moved to America, said without coronavirus he may "never have come up with this character". "I think in a sense lockdown has helped by giving me more free time and giving me an incentive to be like 'well you're broke now anyway so why not try something new'" he said.

Pup tweets cure dog days of Covid

Writer Laura Cumming went viral on Twitter after asking users to send in pictures of their dogs to her daughter Hilla, who is ill with coronavirus. Now Cumming, the author of On Chapel Sands, tells The Londoner of the doggy deluge: “I love that old saying: ‘Dogs are creatures who have already met their Maker’. Dog-owners all over the world have showed us pure open-hearted kindness. We have to be in separate rooms, but this tide of tweets brought my daughter and I together for hours on FaceTime during the dark hours when I couldn’t hug her.

"Hilla especially loved the putting of names to faces: Errol the Tibetan terrier, Circe the greyhound, Flash the Sprocker, Shirley Bassey the Schnauzer. Our own dog Billy, a Toller, has to be away while there is Covid here, and all these thousands of dogs have just poured into our house. All of them best in show!”

In vogue Coel’s email assistant

<p>Michaela Coel</p>Dave Benett

Michaela Coel

Dave Benett

Michaela Coel has shared her method for dealing with a busy inbox – simply get a new email address. The I May Destroy You star says: “It was too much… I’m not too interested in being caught up in the euphoria, you know [of] ‘you’re hot right now, let’s associate with you’.” Emails to her old address now go to her assistant who has “a very hard job… to not tell me anything,” Coel explained to Louis Theroux’s podcast. Inbox zero.

SW1A

<p>Tory MP Neil O’Brien </p>UK Parliament

Tory MP Neil O’Brien

UK Parliament

Neil O’Brien, the MP debunking dubious Covid claims, has taken aim at an “absurd” report by think tank Civitas. He wrote: “This report works on the assumption that there would have been no hit to the economy if the Government had taken no action against the virus.”

Ryan Bourne, chair of public understanding of Economics at Cato, said the “odd” report “assumes that none of the money would have been spent by Treasury if there hadn't been a lockdown, including on testing, vaccines etc". While King’s economics professor Jonathan Portes suggests parts of the report are “just… untrue”.

But Civitas say O’Brien’s suggestion is “misleading”. "At no point in our document did we say or even infer that the government should do nothing. The report states, ‘It is wrong to assume that UK governments have faced and are facing a simple binary choice between ‘doing nothing’ and having a full lockdown’,” editorial director Jim McConalogoue tells The Londoner. “It is therefore misleading to suggest that we made an ‘assumption that there would have been no hit to the economy if the government had taken no action against the virus,” he adds.

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<p>Eddie Hughes MP</p>UK Parliament

Eddie Hughes MP

UK Parliament

Tory MP Eddie Hughes has been spreading cheer in Parliament. “I left chocolate for opposition colleagues in the tearoom and in the Labour whips’ office… it’s just nice to be nice.” As Talleyrand said of the death of the Turkish ambassador: “I wonder what he meant by that?”