Intermission:
Starts well by destroying the charm of the Irish, and of Colin Farrell.
Delivers on what Ocean’s Eleven might have promised, but only promised to promise: A caper film where the emotional underpinning is at least as important as t[…]

Andrew Lloyd Webber is a populist composer, an unashamed Tory, and an easy target, so it’s hardly surprising that given the golden opportunity of his new art exhibition the Guardian enjoys a good old sneer. Bar a handful of old songs I have no […]

The piece below on the World Cup was written before I’d read this article about the guy who designed it and his aims when doing the piece. I also found that he’d designed the Baseball World Cup Trophy, which looks a little derivative to […]

The little things mean so much. Supporting a recently relegated team sometimes has its minor consolations, which are often exaggerated by the faithful: new towns; new grounds; new pubs; maybe winning a few games; being a big fish in a smaller pool. R[…]

KEVIN ROWLAND – Thunder Road
When it pops up on a compilation which I am unaware of the contents of, I think to myself – is that Thunder Road? It sure sounds like it. Thunder Road is proabably my favourite Bruce Springsteen song, marking […]

The false goal of visual realism in games – a springboard for at least three articles about video-game design that I’ve never written. Top of my list of crimes against mimesis in many recent third- and first-person games that I have seen […]

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[…]