Spirited Away is over-rated. (That got you clicking).What is most interesting about it is its reliance on at least a cursory knowledge of the Shinto spirit world and Japanese culture. Consider this one line description of the plot from the Guardian: […]

Don’t you love that feeling when you check your old email account, and then suddenly REMEMBER when you bid on all those Dr Who videos from eBay in a couch-driven stupor of sossidge sandwiches and the odd glass of BEER?
(Ssh – Pyramids of […]

Fragrant Ale in it’s proper old 1500’s stages is something I would really like to try. According to ANDREW BOORDE in a Dietary of Englysshe Helff:
“Ale is made of malte and water; and they the which do put any other thynge to ale th[…]

Brrrrr! Winter has set in and feeling the cold in the pub last night we all pulled out coats tight round ourselves and looked longingly at the fire that had not been lit. How we cowered when a new pubgoer walked through the door, flapping them open a[…]

ED RUSCHA – They Called Her Styrene
I don’t think I have ever seen an Ed Ruscha piece in a gallery. My encounter with the fella I would probably call my favourite artist was in Waterstones on Oxford Street. I am not even a big book buyer,[…]

Cable TV Manna: Survival Via The Remote Control
For the kids, life in a tropical climate is the prime time to play in the park, or at the community pool. Of course, this depends on actually being able to stay outside for more than five minutes. What […]

Days of Plenty / Simple Pleasures: while I’m wandering to and from work, or from pub to pub, or from gallery to gallery, David Batchelor (showing at the Anthony Wilkinson Gallery) must roam the streets of London looking for unburied treasure. […]

Popular: this is probably the most ambitious thing I have ever tried, so I rate its chances of success at about .2% (It’ll also take a good five years even if I do manage it.) Check back every so often, in other words, but it should be a fun li[…]

DA BAND – “Bad Boy This, Bad Boy That”
Imagine you are an R&B singer. Imagine that you’ve been trying for a while to get your big break and have had limited success, but haven’t really blown up the way you’d[…]

I saw The Addams Family movie on the television the other week. I enjoyed it. (Please note that this is probably as close to a film review as you will ever get from me on FT, but before you point me in the direction of Do You See to exercise my new-f[…]