2004 Begone!
In 2004 I disliked more music than ever before. In 2004 I started listening to the radio everyday at work. These things are not unrelated. These were the records I hated most, based on far, far too many listens (thanks XFM!). And yes, so[…]

Human After All
For many of you out there, there may be none more seismic a newsflash over the festive season. The prospect of a new Daft Punk album has excited me for some time, but hang on, it’s not been mentioned on The Raft, only NME from w[…]

The Black Friar has gone smoke-free.
Wandering past the Black Friar on my way home yesterday, I saw a sign saying “A Smoke-Free Pub” – it seems they’ve banned smoking from the place.
It’s an interesting choice: the Bla[…]

how INADVERTENT experiment created ALL SCIENCE
(a “pumpkin publog” co-production)[…]

how inadvertent experiment powers culinary science (a “proven by science” co-production obv)
ok so the way we learn the history of science or the fine details of cookery it’s always presented like clever ppl sat and theorised, then[…]

eskimo pie!!
!!!!!!!!!![…]

“console yrself with the new bleep pop”
this wz the headline in metro – so i don’t actually know what the “new bleep pop” is exactly, as i couldn’t read over the fellow bus traveller’s shoulder w/o mak[…]

THE DADDINO FAMILY TREASURY OF CHRISTMASES PAST
Christmas 1978

It never occurred to me that Lobster & Shrimp Fra Diovolo might not constitute a “real” Christmas dinner. It also never occurred to me that it was an especially Italian-[…]

Who is Jonathan Creek
During the recent FT server move, a massive and improbable system error generated this oddity on our new “essays” blog. Somehow it also managed to be published BACK IN TIME.[…]

aka Edvard Munch?s The Scream in film form. How much of a selling point was the cute moppet, head in hands, yelling. This is an idiosyncratic gesture considering the plot of the film. Certainly being left behind leaves Mac in a tough spot, but even w[…]