King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 6 9 Jan 2020 1 in whose garden can we both gather nosegays? 2 where was the lofty location of Aritomo’s garden? 3 who is invited into the garden to share the musk of the rose? 4…
King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 10 22 Jan 2020 1 whose opera was inspired by Virgil? 2 who honoured Queen Anne’s consort with a stimulating voluntary? 3 who wrote music for the attendant to Prospero as he donned his ducal robes? 4…
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…
ELTON JOHN - "Are You Ready For Love?" 11 Feb 2020 Elton John’s best moment at number one comes with a forgotten track from a barely-noticed late-70s EP, lucked onto years later by someone in Sky Sports’ ad agency, remixed (delicately…
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…
DANIEL BEDINGFIELD - "Never Gonna Leave Your Side" 5 Feb 2020 To make one Westlife-esque ballad may be regarded as a misfortune. To make two looks like… a bad mistake, as it turned out. Songwriting cameos aside, this is the last…
The Pollards Of Lop Episode 2: 1990 11 Aug 2020 Here's the second episode of our monthly discussion around the Twitter People's Pop Polls - in this instalment, I'm joined by Maura Johnston, Sarah Clarke and Steve Mannion to talk…
About the Author
writer and editor bit by bit fashioning a history of the UK music press HERE https://www.patreon.com/marksink3r/posts
9 Jan 2004
Independence Day. Isn’t it marvellous? Hurrah hurrah let’s kill the stripper and those hippies! That’s the kind of morals I WANT from my films! Until the aliens bugger up by deciding just to kill EVERYBODY. Where’s the subtlety, the art, the je ne sais quoi indeed about that? Who cares when we have plucky heroes […]
20 Jun 2005
Last week saw the release of not one, but two films about previous films. And I don’t mean Batman Begins (which should be retitled Batman Starts for Essex). Inside Deep Throat, a documentary about the making of and the effect of notorious porn film Deep Throat. And Baadasssss!, Mario Van Peebles film about the making […]
20 Jul 2007
I semi-remember just two lines from the NME’s (Charlie Shaar Murray’s?) review of “Armed Forces” (secret unused title “Emotional Fascism”). One was that one of the other songs resembled ELP “jamming in the bottom of an oil drum”! The other — more germane to this post, as well as being true — is that “with […]
28 Jul 2009
Here’s something I did for fun yesterday: a graph showing the % of UK #1 hits with female lead vocals, year by year. (Shared male/female leads counted half)*. (Click on it if you want it a bit clearer). The red bars are the percentage of female leads for each year. The line is a trendline […]
8 Aug 2019
Hello Popular readers! After sixteen years, and suffering from (as you’ll have noticed) a much slower posting rate, I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to crowdfund this project, using Patreon. HERE’S THE LINK. This coincides with me leaving my day job and going solo, which opens up a lot of spare time. But billable […]
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 […]
9 Jan 2013
GET UR FROAK ON While most of my online acquaintances were geeking out today at the thought of a new David Bowie album, our house was far more excited by the announcement of new Pokémon games – Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, the first on Nintendo’s 3DS console(1). The announcement was made by the President […]
21 Dec 2009
Well, that’s that: the machine has been given a good beating and we can look forward to “Bulls On Parade” on the festive Argos ad next year. I will admit I didn’t think the RATM crew could do it: I was wrong. But as the dust settles on this most fractious and increasingly entertaining Christmas […]