Certain days require anything but the hard graft of a gritty drama, so it was a pleasure to find Stephen Fry swearing elegantly this evening. He was on QI – a deliberately barely structured conversation of a programme, which hopes to muster e[…]

Chinese jade
There are about ten 20th Century prints in a corridor near the Korean room; and in the lobby of the rear entrance a case holds about as many very old pieces of pottery; and so much for Japan at the British Museum. Prehistory and the last[…]

Things that do make me proud of one of my adopted teams: Manchester City’s Bell End. Well done Colin and big smelly BOOs to John Wardle, who HATES FUN.[…]

Meanwhile… Back to lists and stats! The dementedly thorough everyhit.com should provide ample entertainment for those of you missing Tom’s Popular blog these last couple of weeks. Among other things, the site has pleased us greatly by noting […]

I hope Magnus is being straight-up in professing joy about Paul W.S. Anderson, but whether or not, there’s an angle worth noting here. Before Aliens Vs. Predator was a film (but after it was a comic and a fan-joke) it was a video game. And Paul[…]

The mysteries of Scotch Steak House remain virgo intacta: my friend and I arrived, fully intending to take whatever this mysterious chain dished out, at the one in the Strand. It was, of course, entirely empty – except for one very tiny little […]

Enough has been said on ‘The Theory of Everything’ but it worth mentioning that it is symptomatic of how awful science TV has got. TToE sits in a slot once occupied by the excellent Equinox series of one hour documentaries, and one can&#8[…]

…from the band Metric, whose new lp, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, has just been promoted to the A-list on the radio station in my head. On first listen you might peg them as skinny-tie, keytar new wavers, but Haines has got a smart mo[…]

Full Four-Organ Breakfast (defined for Felicity): full english breakfast – bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatos, beans, toast or fried bread – PLUS kidneys, black pudding and sausage. How this works: kidneys = obv (organ 1). Sausage = nose and[…]

From Tomorrow’s World‘s 1975 report on Kraftwerk and ‘Autobahn’ (rebroadcast on Top of the Pops 2): “Last year they dispensed with the last conventional instrument, the violin. Next year they hope to get rid of the keybo[…]