Copybooks
Browsing idly in WH Smiths on Friday a couple of new books caught my eye. One was by Vivian Cook, called Accomodating Broccoli In The Cemetary. This unpleasantly unwieldy title turns out to be a book about spelling, subtitled “Why can[…]

Or maybe: Sir Michael Caine should be a national treasure.
I’m not sure which of these statements I agree with most.
What’s indisputable is that the quality of his acting should not be celebrated. His performances are, almost without exce[…]

Bank Holiday Sounds: I am in a good mood this weekend, and it’s time to share it with you. Download this song (2.5MB) and see how you feel. This is not some kind of evil trick.[…]

Sasha Frere-Jones guest-posts at Fluxblog and raises some really interesting questions about repetition, formula, and ‘badness’ in music. The comments box, delightfully, lives up to them.[…]

THE SQUARE TABLE 13 / The Libertines – “Can’t Stand Me Now?”
Pop Factor: 510
“How can anyone still get it up for this?” asked Blissblog a bit ago. Good question. Listening to this I can’t help thinking of wh[…]

As an attempt at a revisionist account of my mother’s cooking (perhaps one day I will be able to discuss cooking without simultaneously discussing my mother, but this is not that day), today, with some friends, I decided to try to incorporate f[…]