Pub Quiz Report
Pub: The Shakespeare in Stoke Newington. Near the route of the 73 bus. The pub used to be part of the same ‘chain’ that runs the Rosemary Branch in De Beavoir Town, but might not be anymore. Anyway, plenty of seats, intere[…]

HOW TO DO A TOP ALBUMS LIST: inspired by Pitchfork’s revision of its own Top 100 90s albums list (and don’t think I don’t sympathise with them).
1. Assemble ‘staff’.
2. Go to pub.
3. Drink a lot.
4. When all are drunk en[…]

Apparently this awful cove played something in Duran Duran. Keyboards probably. Or eyeshadow. He was the ‘arty one’; the band trying out a one dimensional personailty idea well before the Spice Girls got near the concept. So Rhodes was Ar[…]

What is to be done with Richard Dawkins?
RD’s contribution to the tiresome “Dear George” that The Guardian felt compelled to publish last week:
After you and Jeb stole the election (by a margin smaller than the number of folks you […]

It’s back!: Gabba/AMP/ has become Gabba/Pod/, and it’s taken me weeks to notice, seemingly. But now I have I can rejoice with everyone else (also! a votes and comments system! kewl! and a membership system I haven’t worked out yet).[…]

The Mother is not as misogynstic as a lot of Hanif Kureshi’s work, but it still has some pretty horrible women in the centre of it. On paper this is a potentially laudable taboo busting film about sex between an older woman and younger man. It […]

Of course having gone to McDonalds’ I could hardly pass up the opportunity to sample the BIG TASTY, a.k.a. the McBritish – the megaburger available exclusively to UK residents. It’s an interesting choice for a Brit-branded burger si[…]

Pi is the ratio between the radius of a circular object and its circumference. It is notable for being a irrational number, impossible to display exactly as a fraction and in decimal terms it goies on forever without notably repeating itself. The onl[…]

Deception by Philip Roth
There’s something impressive yet still insubstantial in Roth’s work that is at its peak in this very slight book. I’ve read just about everything he wrote, and enjoyed them, but I’ve never been quite c[…]

NATION UNITES IN FAINTLY DUTIFUL REJOICING!: Good work our boys etc. etc., and it was all very exciting, but I have to say I can’t detect as yet the mass uplifting of the national spirit that some might have expected. Isabel and I went shopping[…]