amazon’s algorithm for working out yr top 105 “recommended” lps (or books or whatever) is a totally hypnotic mystery to me – and i can’t tell you anything formal abt how it makes its choices (well actually i do have two […]

Cheaters Never Prosper! And indeed the only winners here are German bierkeller-quiz masters who have a fine new question or two.[…]

Anthony Easton says:
Night of the Living Dead is Romero practicing. It is the beginning of using horror to express social concerns, it is beginning of making low budgets respectable, and it is the origin of the sex kitten as first victim. The best th[…]

Ever wonder why Robert Elms and Sade split up? No, nor did I, I always thought it was self evident. But for those of you for whom doting on minor celebrities of the eighties is a must, the hint is in this song about the worst mixed alcoholic drink in[…]

Info hound Nick Dastoor has stumbled across this helpful anthropological study into British pub ettiquette by the Social Issues Research Centre. And you know what. It is pretty good. It sticks by its own maxim to not take things too seriously, and se[…]

Diagnostico confirmado: Pete Baran es un nabazo. Such was the suggestion the last time I reviewed an Almod’var film, Talk to Her. And now I am back at the nabazo coalface, having seen La Mala Educaci’n(Bad Education). Will Argentinean you[…]

Our sister blog Pumpkin Publog just hit on my party trick: figuring out what a fraction is based on the first few places of the decimal version. It can be done pretty quickly with a bit of spare paper and a calculator that supports x->1/x (or if you&[…]

Authors you’re too old to read at 34 (part 2)
Virginia Andrews
I Love Books has been tossing around the notion of re-reading, reflecting changes of taste and how the reader’s judgement alters throughout the years. In the middle of the dis[…]

Oddly, as I went to start this piece “Some Like It Hot” by the Power Station came on my mp3 player. Not really much of a commentary on the film, it did isolate one of the most bizarre things about the film. Its title. No-one likes it hot […]

PUB QUIZ QUESTION OF THE WEEK
This, even by the standards of bizarre pub quiz questions, is a little bit on the random front. The feeling of achievement when the result was finally discerned was tangible.
Q: Two prime numbers under 100 when one is di[…]