King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 8 18 Jan 2020 1 Who fell to Pardiñaz in Madrid? 2 And who fell to Bailaor in Talavera de la Reina? 3 Who initiated the vindication of the Maid of Orleans? 4 Which…
Unheard / Unread: January 2020 24 Feb 2020 Starting in 2017, I've had the aim of listening to a new (to me) album every day. This has been - for the most part - one of my best…
King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 12 29 Jan 2020 What currency of which country is suggested by: 1 a nip? 2 6.76 metres for gold? 3 a Balkan amphitheatre? 4 a sweet-tasting carbohydrate? 5 a converted Muslim place of worship? 6 a competitive gathering of…
King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 7 15 Jan 2020 Where: 1 were we 76 for 7? 2 did the Donkey kick off northward? 3 did Gurney reward Lightborn by stabbing him? 4 does Monti’s Father Thames overlook the first…
King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 9 20 Jan 2020 1 who started in the Justinian? 2 as what is the black trumpet also known? 3 upon what is the Lord laughing in the sun? 4 where did Dulcibella run aground, lured by…
King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 15 9 Feb 2020 Which dual enterprise:1 could work wonders?2 took over from West and Wyatt?3 gives one a shot at Double Dutch?4 exploited the unique qualities of Siberian Weasels’ hair?5 created 33 complications…
King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 14 6 Feb 2020 Round and round and round: 1 what slope is now chronometric? 2 where is a duck bill followed by a dive? 3 where might there be help from the north-westerly? 4 what recalls the twin child nurtured by…
About the Author
Tom invented Freaky Trigger on a bus journey in the mid-90s. A page about what he's up to can be found here
4 May 2010
#601, 19th December 1987, video In the comics series Phonogram, there’s a scene in which the – kind of horrible – pop DJ Seth Bingo and his indie collaborator Silent Girl are struggling to work a recalcitrant dancefloor into life. Their solution? “Play the Blondie!” – a copy of “Atomic” which literally glows as it’s […]
22 Jan 2009
This is a graph – done by anatol_merklich off the Poptimists LiveJournal community, so massive thanks to him – showing the number of new entries in the UK singles chart for each year from 1952 to the present.
15 Aug 2006
The Notorious Bettie Page is a film about the good old days of porn. You know, when it wasn’t exploitative, and all the girls portrayed within were not only fun loving conspirators in an art project, but believed in Jeebus too. Most film about porn are about the good old days. Inside Deep Throat told […]
11 Oct 2006
The discerning televisual fan will be aware of the vacuum currently residing in the schedules between the 7.30pm end of Hollyoaks First Look and the 9pm commencement of Ghost Whisperer. There are only so many times one can flick between Puff Daddy jiggling next to the Lead Pussycat on TMF and the startlingly abhorrent animated […]
4 Sep 2009
#543, 15th December 1984, video “Do They Know It’s Christmas” is significant in one way, and insignificant in another. First, it raised a lot of awareness and money and established the pop single as an excellent mechanism for doing those things. This was significant. Gargantuan “supergroups” like this fell out of favour but charity records […]
13 May 2008
#394, 4th September 1976 In my teens I read a science fiction novel with a startlingly elegant twist. (I won’t mention the book’s name in case you come across it yourself.) It was about a brilliant scientist who vanishes: the book’s protagonist goes looking for clues to what happened, and becomes close to the scientist’s […]
12 Nov 2014
The Secret History Of Band Aid Everybody remembers Band Aid. And – despite everything – most people remember Band Aid 2. And now we have Band Aid 20 30. Which rather begs the question – why does nobody ever talk about Band Aids 3 to 29? Take a trip down memory lane as we remind […]
5 Jan 2019
“Greetings! It’s me, 90’s summer dance craze The Macarena. I’ve never really gone away, as you must surely know: the muscle memory of hand flips and hip wiggles is ingrained into the very fabric of your DNA, to be passed down to your heirs and their heirs for many centuries hence, waxing on and waxing […]
