FT Advent Calendar Of Christmas TV Specials: December 6th 6 Dec 2011 The best bit about Christmas specials is the sugar-coated MORAL at the end of the story where the authority figures remind the children that the holidays are about Giving and…
FT Advent Calendar of Xmas TV Specials: December 2nd 2 Dec 2011 This one was repeated last year, and is a classic of its era, and I think we would all agree that sometimes it behooves a TV Christmas Special to ask…
FT Advent Calendar Of Christmas TV Specials: December 5th 6 Dec 2011 Christmas specials aren't just the province of television. Every year all sorts of media throw Santa coated tat at us left, right and centre. All it takes is to go…
FT Advent Calendar Of Christmas TV Specials: December 3rd 3 Dec 2011 Christmas is a time for the children, which means it's also a time for endless kids' TV specials. More than ever, in the age of the "DVD movie" stocking-stuffer. But…
The Freaky Trigger Readers’ Poll 2014: #20-#11 14 Jan 2015 "Greetings! I'm Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. You may remember me from one of this week's University Challenge bonus rounds where one of the teams failed to recognise me at…
Poptimism presents… Club Action POPULAR SPECIAL 26 Nov 2012 It's been 60 years since Al Martino was the UK's first #1 record*! To celebrate this sensational sexagenary, DJ Chlorine and The Barnet Ape will be playing only #1s all…
About the Author
writer and editor bit by bit fashioning a history of the UK music press HERE https://www.patreon.com/marksink3r/posts
13 Aug 2008
#428, 18th November 1978 “Rat Trap” is billed – in the Guinness Book Of British Hit Singles, no less – as the first punk No.1. I couldn’t recall it – my memories of the Rats themselves were vague; Geldof I knew for later good works. So I approached “Rat Trap” cold but with a frisson of definite […]
21 May 2012
Huge weepy thanks to Bob, Pete and Sarah for immortalising us in song. And thanks to commenters past and present for making it worth immortalising.
26 Jan 2004
“Black Man Ray” is Ray Charles, who China Crisis apparently believe in. Now Ray Charles’ blackness is not a secret, so why did China Crisis see fit to remind us of it on their incomprehensibly awful single? My theories: i) They were talking about the photographer Man Ray, and asserting that he was black. Which […]
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 […]
3 Oct 2004
In search of Squirrel – Part two (warning, contains graphic images) Some of you may remember this article I wrote some time ago about my “failure” as a vegetarian and my quest for the different. Well, I’ve done it. Squirrel had become a bit of an obsession, I’d chased up all sorts of alleys (Julian […]
23 Aug 2005
One of the happy upshots of the Bosman Ruling which we have been living with for almost ten years, is the effect it has on players prices near the end of their contract. Take Clinton Morrison (Birmingham wish someone would) the Republic of Ireland striker. Bought for a club record of £4.25 million three years […]
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.
21 May 2008
I give marks out of 10 to every song – based on whatever criteria you like, here’s your opportunity to say what you’d have given more than 6 to from 1976. Tick as many as you like. And use the comments to discuss the year as a whole, if you like.
