Not entirely surprising but oh how I wish I had 15 million quid to splash out on this and annoy the neighbours. Add to the list of lovely buildings that never were…[…]

Look on our works… This confirms all my prejudices. Creators of the idea (I refuse to say “brand”) of “world” music ‘fess up: every record made to fit into that genre has been pants (which is not to mean that good […]

Alex Petridis doesn’t actually compare the new Faithless album to Jacques Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other [he could have added the subtitle for heightened effect: or, the Prosthesis of Origin]. Instead he ridicules a ‘broadshe[…]

As the current FT top 100 films suggests, there are two principles available on which to base lists of cultural artifacts. You can be arbitrary, and pretend to be being something else, or you can be arbitrary, and admit it.
James Wood, reviewing Rand[…]

Treasure Island: a reply to ms.
Wendy Katz’s ‘Introduction’ to the Centenary Edition (Edinburgh UP, 1998) comments that ‘inquisitive readers have attempted to match the historical data with the fictional dates in the text to e[…]

Clientele confusion. According to 6 Music, Laura Veirs’ ‘The Cloud Room’ will be the first single from her _Carbon Glacier_, an album whose purchase on the recommendation of various middlebrow publications for middle-aged men doubtl[…]

‘A Bible with a bit cut out! […] It don’t bind no more’n a ballad book.’
I flew back to Edinburgh from Brussels via Heathrow yesterday, and on the bus into town I realised that on the second flight I’d left the boo[…]

Everybody Loves Raymond is one of those shows whose name begs for an obvious response: a bit like calling your single ‘Not Good Enough’ and sending it to Tanya Headon for a review. It’s currently running on Channel 4 at 8am, a time […]

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[…]