As you get older, the things you choose to notice in photographs and documentaries change, I think: the inadvertent but evocative things, anyway (which some call “punctum”). So when you’re at school yourself, a school photo from the[…]

As you arrive at Dalston Junction from the West, there’s a graffito to cheer you, high on a whitewashed wall overlooking a little car-park. Its inspiration is a far-too-famous poster of a 60s political icon: it’s a stencil – so it m[…]

I must admit I was getting a bit worried at the underlying message of Big Fish as it proceeded. This terrible old man had spent his whole life constantly lying abotu himself. Oooh-weee. I thought there’s paranoid delusional case at best, or evi[…]

Indeed it is even better that once you are married you still really don’t speak to them all that much. To the extent of not spending much time at home. After all they are just baby making machines who can be easily shut up by white picket fence[…]

A man who spends most of his life away from his family looking after a random town and spending an excessive amount of time with an attractive young woman* is a good a decent husband and father just because he doesn’t shag her.
A lot of people […]

FIVE LIES ABOUT BIG FISH
2: Albert Finney and Jessica Lange are the same age.
Lange born 20 April 1949.
Finney born 9 May 1936.
And yet it is wholly convincing that they met when they were eighteen in the flick. What is even more convincing is that […]

PUBLOG CALL MY BLUFF:
What is Chowki? Is it
a) An Indian Restaurant just off of Piccadilly
b) A root vegetable notable for for being halfway between chicory and potato
c) Where Jonathon Ross gets sent when he breaks the law.
It is of course a), and t[…]

FIVE LIES ABOUT BIG FISH
1: Ewan MacGregor looks just like a young Albert Finney.
Just like in some parallel universe (far far away) Ewan is going to grow up into Alec Guinness, it is hard to believe that genetically he is equally mapped out to grow […]

NOTES ON RICE: the Swank Way to cook rice is to use exactly the right amount of water and cook for exactly the right amount of time. I sometimes think this is a kind of Top-Chef Showing-Off, and really evolved bcz Top Chefs employ someone else to cle[…]

Update!
well, so far we ain’t doing too well, the veal was lovely, cooked with creme fraice and mushroom. The horse sausage is with it’s true owner – Msr Hopkins and the clams? – they ran out of shelf life last night (pub dis[…]