I’ve never liked Will Buckley’s pieces in the Observer, and until today had put it down to his schoolboyish byline photo rather than anything concrete in his writing or attitudes. Surely my dislike was down to envy of his twinkly-eyed per[…]

The backlash begins? Too Many DJs Snub 2 Many DJs: “I often have 2ManyDjs enforced on me by women on tour buses. It’s f*cking Jive Bunny that’s done in such a trendy type of way it suits Post Menstrual Stress.” Dave Clarke (vi[…]

Language and the brain
There are a bunch of conditions that affect how the brain handles language. The ones that are reasonably well understood relate to damage to specific parts of the brain or are genetic in origin, but there are others where we do[…]

I wz sat next to the designer (a very old friend) and behind the adaptor-translator, who i had just that evening met and liked, so my response to the African-politics reading of Mother Courage at the Hackney Empire is far more tied into friendships t[…]

FOOTBALL + KUNG FU = SURE FIRE HIT
I think we can all agree that this equation balances. But FOOTBALL + RIDICULOUS CGI(KUNG FU) = LESS OF A SURE FIRE HIT seems to be the rationale behind whomever has the distribution rights to Shaolin Soccer in the U[…]

Just heard on the radio the sad news that Sir Coxsone Dodd, sound system pioneer and founder of Studio One, has died from a heart attack, aged 72.[…]

“In my view, it is not a gimmick” sez ENO spokesman of opera at Glasto. No, sorry, IT IS A GIMMICK. But I am thoroughly pro-gimmicks, so that’s fine – especially in the classical world where the gimmickal imagination rarely st[…]

Easy as it is to believe, sellout culture guru Malcolm McLaren had a shot at writing a musical with none other than Pete Waterman back in the early nineties.
What did this consist of? Its hard to say based on the evidence presented here, but plenty […]

I didn’t, of course, but apparently I’ve seen the next best thing: the first competitive goal by the All-American wonderboy, 14-year-old soccer sensation and certified New Pelé, Freddy Adu. Young Fred is to be seen with The Great Man him[…]

The art of the film poster has taken a nosedive in the last twenty years, well thought out collages, montages and paintings have given way to often messily generic screen grabs, cheap poster printing and photoshopped monstrosities. Every now and then[…]