Hundreds of posts now hang off Steven Wells’s intensely moving farewell article at the Philadelphia Weekly, which ends with an atypically cryptic Swellsy in prophet mode, quoting Michael Jackson, before the thread-flood of sad affection and baf[…]

Andy Murray chastises a tennis ball

During Wimbledon’s inaugural set of night-time tennis on Monday night, played under what’s become the most famous roof since the Sistine Chapel, I found that I loathe every particle of Andy Murray.
No[…]

So I listened to the UK Top 40 on Radio 1 for the first time in – oh, I don’t know, years. Like a lot of the audience, I was ambulance-chasing: I wanted to see how the download-led charts would cope with a superstar death. I was hoping &#[…]

There is a remarkably unremarkable piece of news on the BBC website. Apparently according to that old favourite “A MEDICAL EXPERT” the appearance of so many fat people on TV normalises obesity. Or as BBC News Health section put it: Fat St[…]

Perhaps it is important to good actors to do mediocre films for you to recognise how good they are. Ditto with good directors. The only question is why would said people, possibly at the height of their careers choose such flat projects? Its a questi[…]

There is a sequence in Red Cliff where the sneeky tactician for the good guys lets go a dove to gather intelligence, and said dove flutters over the lake acting as a battlefield. In this flight the dove takes in everything, the boats, the standing ar[…]

On a recent radio program I heard some old dude talking about how kids dance these days: “Just all by themselves! Jumping up and down with their hands in the air!” This guy goes to some good parties, I thought. “Not like in my day &[…]

If you take pop history from the emergence of Elvis to right now, the release of Thriller– the highest selling album there will ever be – sits at the midpoint. This coincidence nagged at me when I reviewed the album’s reissue, not v[…]

Just a short front page reminder to everyone that it is Poptimism TONIGHT at the Horse Bar, and as you might imagine we will be paying our respects.
Respectively to:
a) Sky Saxon (you’ll hear Pushin’ Too Hard)
b) Farah Fawcett (you’[…]

This summers hit comedy, The Hangover, is one big lie. Firstly, as hit comedies go, its not all that funny. For a shaggy dog stringing along of vaguely absurd scenarios it has a paucity of imagination about how absurd it can get. Whilst pitching as t[…]