Normal Service Will Resume Shortly (UPDATE Has Resumed!) 6 Aug 2014 We're just trying to shake out some gremlins on the FT server. The beautiful FT appearance will be restored as soon as possible UPDATE 10:20pm: The FT appearance will be back…
Brief Times at Hardwicke House 24 Feb 2012 Today is the twenty fifth anniversary of the very first airing of Hardwicke House. And tomorrow is the twenty fifth anniversary of the very last. Hardwicke House was a…
The Great Cheddar Cheese Off 2015 : Part one 19 Dec 2015 Which country makes the best cheddar? This question has plagued us for millennia (possibly). But no longer, thanks to the brave and fearless scientists who gathered on a rainy afternoon to undertake…
Wiki-illiams Quizz 2018. Round 3 2 Jan 2019 1 Whence the Diehards? 2 Which Park witnessed disasters costing 25 and 66 lives? 3 Where, after 150 years, do they continue “to play for the sake of playing”? 4…
Pop World Cup 2018 Group F Match 1 4 Jul 2018 An intriguing group for this third Pop World Cup match, with two of the sleeping giants of pop football - Sweden and South Korea - lined up against the always…
Game of Thrones S04E10: The Children 23 Jun 2014 Well, friends – here we are at the end of the series. Most of the loose ends have been tied up, and I take back last week’s grumble regarding frustrating…
17 Nov 2003
I notice elsewhere, in my absence, some young scamp over on NYLPM has started a concept piece, some say think piece entitled the Alphabet Of Pop. Now no-one knows more than myself the beauty of lists, as my Week Of Wank and Breakfast Of Banality proves. Its cheap easy journalism and also gives one a […]
1 Oct 2002
Introduction It was about 2 in the morning and I was trying to get a handle on Alexander the Great. I had a final exam coming up and I’d missed half the syllabus – and something else was missing; a way into the man’s head. Alexander had single-handedly destroyed the world’s largest Empire and put […]
10 Aug 2004
Distilled from several years of pop experience, here from the WORST to the BEST are ways to approach a cover version. The Acoustic Guitar: i.e. “Any good song will sound great on an acoustic guitar”, runs the prized nugget of MOJO wisdom which results in Travis mauling “…Baby One More Time”. Culprits throw up their […]
10 Jan 2012
Hi, I’m Lauryn Hill circa my breakthrough role in Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit, and it is a real pleasure to be able to present to you the top ten FreakyTrigger tracks of the year. When my mother told me I couldn’t join the choir run by a fake nun, I got really […]
14 Nov 2006
In The Beginning There Was Nothingness. IF ONLY. In The Beginning There Was The Word. NOT THE BIRD FROM L7 PULLING DOWN HER KECKS AGAIN. But neither of these are strictly true. Because the first book of the Bible Of Badness is Genesis. And if you were ever to question how bad this Bible could […]
17 Jun 2010
Finally, the moment of ABSOLUTE POP TRUTH is upon us! And my goodness, what a nail-biter of a contest this has been. Halfway through the voting, two decades broke decisively ahead of the pack, establishing a lead that proved impossible to catch up with. Although one of them looked to have the edge, its rival […]
17 Jun 2018
It’s here! The opening game of the Pop World Cup finds the four teams of Group A raising the curtain on the tournament. Pop football veterans Russia and Uruguay meet two Arab states – Egypt and Saudi Arabia – with less of a record at this level. Who will prevail? You decide. Spotify playlist and […]
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 […]