X-Factor Crystal Ball 13 Dec 2010 MIGHT CONCEIVABLY MAKE A GOOD RECORD BUT PROBABLY WON'T: One Direction. MIGHT CONCEIVABLY MAKE A GREAT RECORD AS LONG AS WILL I AM KEEPS HIS GRUBBY PAWS OFF: Cher Lloyd…
Sic Transit Gloria Barlow 10 Dec 2012 When Was The X-Factor's Imperial Phase? I got bored with the recent series of the X-Factor, and I was not alone: the ratings this year have crashed by a few…
X-Factor Live Shows: Week 1 9 Oct 2011 (Originally posted on my Tumblr) Tiny background detail: as with last year I've studiously avoided previous episodes, press coverage, etc, so I'm coming to these acts (and three of these…
Duke of the Rotten Underfelting of All Culture, Marquis of the Mothed Marches, gorgeous as the fifth moon and terrible as a tummy with hammers, i bind your gnomes to slake my bed: ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR
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.
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 […]
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 […]
2 Jan 2001
On Skykicking last week, Tim touched, popwise, on the continuing cultural battle over what the eighties were or are or mean or meant. The story of mainstream rock and politics in the 1990s was among other things the story of a similar battle, that time over the sixties. On the one hand you had the […]
28 Nov 2004
i. shepherd’s/cottage pie ii. cheese flan/pizza iii. scotch egg iv. boiled egg actually i am not going to bother you w.all the ins and outs of the GREBT PIE DEBATE, as i wz not in on its inception, and besides the militia are now formed and a stiff crackdown ordered on heretics and dissidents. Hunting […]
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 […]
27 Sep 2001
What is “Panic” about? Dismissed and attacked since its release as small-minded, or snobbish, or even borderline racist, The Smiths’ anti-disco broadside continues to intrigue. On this thread, The Pinefox calls it a “yoking of two ideas” – a revolutionary fantasia and an attack on dance music – and claims that it’s the second of […]
woah, sudden flashback