Pop World Cup 2010: Group C – England vs Algeria

The first round in Group C left pop-soccer heavyweights England disappointed by a loss and in need of a good result in round 2. Conversely, Algeria won their opening game and are looking to press on to qualification. It’s an unexpectedly big match and the managers will have been thinking carefully about tactics. Won’t they?

Voting for this match ends at midnight on 22 March more »

Tim in FT • 18 Comments

Pop World Cup 2010: Group C – Slovenia vs USA

There’s no way around it: this is one of the classic David vs Gol-iath clashes which make these opening rounds such fun. Surely with the resources and tradition of the United States of America ranged against them, there is no hope for even the pluckiest Slovenian side? But this is world pop football, no easy games, anything can happen on the day with a sprinkling of cup stardust. Let’s wait and see.

Voting for this match ends at midnight on 21 March more »

Tim in FT • 17 Comments

Pop World Cup 2010: Group B – Greece vs Nigeria

More action now from the group of draws, Group B. Greece ranked as outsiders ahead of the tournament, while Nigeria were hotly tipped in some quarters to go somewhere near All The Way. But the table doesn’t lie and they go into this game all square. Defeat may leave either team contemplating an early exit and no-one wants to go home too soon to their national equivalent of Del Amitri.

Voting for this match ends at midnight on 18 March more »

Tim in FT • 17 Comments

Pop World Cup 2010: Group B – Argentina 0 Korea Republic 1

The first round of games in Group B finished all square – draws all round. It’s a position to conjure with, as fancied outfits try to recover from the disappointments of points dropped, while outsiders find their confidence boosted by points unexpectedly gained. Anything could happen from here, but failure at this stage could be fatal for any of the four teams.

Voting for this match ends at midnight on 15 March more »

Tim in FT • 28 Comments

Freaky Trigger Valentine’s Day Special at the Hangover Lounge – this Sunday!

On Sunday afternoon (that’s real actual Valentine’s Day, chums) a selection of your Freaky Trigger friends will be taking over the Hangover Lounge  (2-7 pm at London’s The Lexington, delicious food and drink available!) and showcasing the smoother side of our questionable taste in pop.

A convivial, if possibly somewhat blurry, afternoon is promised. All welcome, especially FT readers we haven’t met yet.

Tim in FT • No Comments

The FT Top 25 Pubs of the 00s No 16: The Hole In The Wall, Mepham Street SE1

The Hole In The Wall

The Hole in the Wall is not a hole in a wall so much as a space under a railway arch by Waterloo. That is to say, it has a smallish carpeted front bar with a handful of tables for cushioned lounging in an L-shape facing the bar; a biggish uncarpeted box of a back bar with probably ten tables and plenty of standing room, and a laughable tiny concrete “beer garden” smokesies area out the back. Clientele a mix of commuters, hard drinkers, randoms and (on matchdays) football and rugby watchers. That’s it, really. But.

In the middle of the 1980s, before I was old enough to drink legally and before I’d even thought about living in London, I’d visit my student older brother here. I’d arrive and depart from Waterloo, off the one-track chuggy line up from Honiton.

My brother would meet his friends at the Hole In The Wall - they, undergraduates in not-unnecessarily-fashionable rags, would impress and awe me with tales of the kinds of activities I could only read about in the NME. I was a country boy in love at a distance with a specific brand of indie (let’s say continuity mod-pop with a non-rigorous and unsustainable kind of oppositional rhetoric) and the downwardly-aspirational, boozy, fading folk-punk scene (I loved the Boothill Foot-Tappers as much as I loved those early Pogues records). All the good stuff seemed to happen in the pub, up London. This place seemed like the sort of pub where it just might. more »

Tim in FT / Pumpkin Publog • 22 Comments

Resisting Entropy – Mars Planets and the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Food Science Day 2007 Experiment #1)

Mars Planets: the atomisation of the Mars Bar. An entropic dis-integration, the tendency of all things to become more chaotic, in confectionery form. I’m trying to resist the impulse to tie this stuff up to no-such-thing-as-Society atomisation because that’s not how we do things, right? And Mars Planets are better to share than a proper big Mars Bar, after all, for reasons of ease and hygiene. Nevertheless, my friends, here’s our chance to take a brave and random stand against entropy, to roll back the ticking clock of chocolate-coated chaos. more »

Tim in Proven By Science / Pumpkin Publog • 4 Comments

Nutter-Outside-The-PubWatch

One of the reasons I kind-of-sort-of welcomed England’s recently-passed smoking ban is my largely positive experience of nipping outside for a crafty gasper while drinking in other countries. While I don’t actively seek them out, and very often the short session outside the pub is a solitary one, brief chats with fellow smokers in the US and Ireland have generally been pretty good.

Since on day one of the new UK-wide ban I met a crazy, I thought it might be worth documenting the more unusual of the conversations with my fellow martyrs.

Number 1: July 1, 2007, Franklin’s, Lordship Lane.

Setting: Franklins is as much a restaurant as a pub. It was (I understand) an eating house which was retro-fitted to be a gastropub and I really can’t recomend it highly enough. At least, I’m not going to. more »

Tim in Pumpkin Publog • 3 Comments

Pomp and Circumnavigation

On Saturday, a crack FT team took it upon themselves to brave the wilds of North West London, in order that we could report back to you, dear reader, on the condition and facilities of the nu-Wembley stadium. We did it all for you, you ungrateful sods. more »

Tim in FT / TMFD • 3 Comments

Nappies Galore!

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of a quick trip home to see my folks, and took the opportunity to pop down to Sidmouth promenade, where, I was assured by local friends, a bleddy great big ship had run aground. Had it? It had! more »

Tim in FT • 7 Comments