The Friday Fun Canon Discussion And Monster Poll

Tom — 12 Mar 2010

People in the Popular comments boxes are talking about “the canon”. I’m always quite curious as to which bits of the canon have ‘taken’ with a broadly pop-positive audience such as we have here. So here’s a poll, v[…]

Your own private quatre bras

mark sinker — 20 Feb 2007

“[John Thelwall] also had the misfortune to be a mediocre poet — a crime which, although it is committed around us every day — historians and critics cannot forgive.” —E.P.Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class*
It was ca[…]

Which of the following is not a pie?

mark sinker — 28 Nov 2004

i. shepherd’s/cottage pieii. cheese flan/pizzaiii. scotch eggiv. 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 s[…]

Why, Claudius? – Family Affairs

Bec — 17 Mar 2024

“Family Affairs” begins with disembodied Clavdivs summarising the last nine years of plot: Julia and Marcus Agrippa did get married, but then Livia poisoned Marcus Agrippa and forced Tiberius to divorce his wife Vipsania…somehow? This allowed T[…]

Why, Claudius? – Waiting in the Wings

Bec — 24 Mar 2024

So anyway, Gaius died. 
Old Clavdivs mumbles this to himself while ransacking his study for family history research material, so for the very first time, the opening flash forward actually serves a narrative purpose. He finds the letter he needs up […]

Girl Talk

Tom — 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 femal[…]

Films about films (no-one has seen)

Pete Baran — 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 […]

The New Adventures of Tarkus

Al_Ewing — 24 Jul 2002

Tarkus vs The Strokes[…]

The Sex Pistols At The Manchester Free Trade Hall: THE TRUTH

Tom — 14 Apr 2007

Plenty of words have been written about the seminal Sex Pistols’ seminal gig at the seminal Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1976. There has even been a whole book about it! Everyone knows that the gig was really very important indeed and that eve[…]

Why, Claudius?

Bec — 8 Mar 2024

Puritanical belief in predestination has fallen somewhat out of fashion in modern times, although some might argue that true free will is an illusion, even without an asshole God casting people into the fiery pits of hell without regard to their actu[…]

Omargeddon #42: Sepulcros de Miel

Bec — 29 Mar 2024

I’ve been refining the criteria for the perfect work soundtrack over the past few years of work from home as standard and have narrowed the requirements accordingly. Anything with lyrics is too prone to distraction, and while binaural beats are oka[…]

The Strange Death of the UK Charts

Tom — 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.
(more…)[…]

The Friday Fun Canon Discussion And Monster Poll

Tom — 12 Mar 2010

People in the Popular comments boxes are talking about “the canon”. I’m always quite curious as to which bits of the canon have ‘taken’ with a broadly pop-positive audience such as we have here. So here’s a poll, v[…]

Your own private quatre bras

mark sinker — 20 Feb 2007

“[John Thelwall] also had the misfortune to be a mediocre poet — a crime which, although it is committed around us every day — historians and critics cannot forgive.” —E.P.Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class*
It was ca[…]

Which of the following is not a pie?

mark sinker — 28 Nov 2004

i. shepherd’s/cottage pieii. cheese flan/pizzaiii. scotch eggiv. 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 s[…]