Trivia

British writer and satirist. His children Giles Coren and Victoria Coren Mitchell are both also journalists.

The son of a builder, he won a scholarship to Oxford, and also studied at Yale and the University of California. He planned to become a professor, but his experiences in the US prompted him to take up comic writing.

His nephew Michael Coren is a journalist in Canada.

After selling several articles to "Punch" magazine, he was offered a full-time job on its staff. He became famous in the early 1970s with a column supposedly written by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. "The Bulletins of Idi Amin" were a big success. He was editor of "Punch" from 1978-1987.