The Hello Experiment on Lean Mean Fighting Machine is a grand stab at the kind of science we all wanted sorted out as a child. Could a blind woman make such a good clay bust of Lionel Richie, and could you do it in the time it takes to listen to &#82[…]

Much like those eminently satisfying reports of wine experts preferring £4 Sainsbury’s plonk in a blind taste test, Gramophone magazine finds that an obscure pianist who built a cult following on the back of an astonishing variety of accomplis[…]

“[John Thelwall] also had the misfortune to be a mediocre poet — a crime which, although it is committed around us every day — historians and critics cannot forgive.” —E.P.Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class*
It was ca[…]

Oh when will I ever learn? Do not go and see films described as elegiac, expressionistic or downright slow at the Renoir. After a surprisingly tiring day at work, a film where nothing much happens for long stretches in a very comfy and dark cinema is[…]

As we all know the square root of sausage is square sauasge! But what I didn’t know until today that an alias of square sausage was “Lorne sausage”! It certainly doesn’t say that on the packaging of my square sausage – w[…]

Sentimentalist: a new column by me, for Pitchfork Media. The first one talks about music hall, audiences and singers, and expands on a couple of ideas from the Beatles entries in Popular.[…]

“I take my hat right off to the busker man”
There are two ways of viewing this lyric by unambitious bottom-feeders The View. (more…)[…]

Post Lollardry, the brief moment of inspiration re the anti-euphemism of Pigs In Blankets got some of our listeners texting in angrily. Namely that my pig in batter version was shot down in flames. So further scientific research happily proves that e[…]

This is apparently a limited edition of Guinness Marmite (or is that “Marmite – Guinness”?) available from 19 Feb 2007. Your exercise, dear reader, is to guess the Target Demographic. I personally have no idea.
Exercise 2: what do y[…]

One of the top reads on the interwebs lately has been The Diary Of Ralph Dibny, even though it’s completely incomprehensible if you’re not a comics fan who’s been reading DC’s 52 series. The conceit of the comic is that it tel[…]