Stephin Merritt–All The Umbrellas in London.
Sometimes I wonder if there is a song for every feeling, like the perfect wine for every meal. I have been feeling so meloncholy of late, so deeply sad about the state of my life and the world at la[…]

I went to see Elizabeth Price‘s new show (it’s at the Jerwood Space in sunny South London) during my lunch hour. It was perfect: much of her work involves a painstakingly producing low-impact items: ‘Boulder’ is a huge, smooth[…]

The world wide web has failed me. Pink Clove, the gloopy dark red drink which came back into my life last year (see entries on the Harlequin ) has zero presence on the interweb. Now I don’t expect all drinks to have all singing, all dancing web[…]

Lords of the Rhymes are only the rappers that the Beastie Boys COULD have been. Let’s not fool ourselves though, at heart the Beastie Boys are no cooler than rapping in Elvish.
A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
silivren penna miriel
o menel aglar elenath[…]

What is the importance of Tokyo in Ozu’s Tokyo Story? The disaffected kids of the Hirayama’s live there, but is the film suggesting it is Tokyo that has made them a pain in the arse? It is a suggestion that Hanif Kureshi filched in The Mo[…]

Hey! Hackers!! Leave my Cube alone! This of course being the news that a linux preview program has been unleashed upon the beautiful innocent GameCube. What does the program do? Why, draws a penguin of course. If you fancy yourself as a homebrewer ex[…]

Wanted: Easy Games! – I will test the muscle of our new comments system with a request. Isabel wants some new computer games to play, for the PS2 or GameCube. They must be fun – she is no fan of shooters, survival horror, cyberpunk etc et[…]

Fantasy Reader: titled with admirable honesty this is a blog run by somebody who reads fantasy books and then writes about them. It’s a neglected genre (justly in some ways?) so it’s interesting to see the enthusiast’s own perspecti[…]

JogBlog 2: Kit.
I hate the word ‘kit’. But it’s not the association with school PE kit, with scabby knees and wet shorts, cold fields and being completely unable to kick a ball in a straight line, that puts me off. Oh no. It’s[…]

The stir fry 2: January is a month for trying out recipes from books received over Christmas. So far Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Bible has yielded some lovely potatoes with ginger and a super-tasty coriander chicken dish. Actually the latter is part[…]