Our spam filter is being weird — it is basically holding EVERYTHING “pending moderation” (which I think means we have to go through it manually). I’ve just gone back over this evening and rescued everything I spotted (that&#82[…]

A READER REPORT on Diamonds Are Forever:
(this rereading follows up on this post)
1: Sentence on sentence DaF is indeed well written, though weirdly paced. In fact, there’s no significant action — violent or indeed sexy — until you&[…]

I read the Bond books aged roughly 10-14, starting with Diamonds are Forever, which was the only one in my parents’ house. This was also the first film I saw — birthday outing, my 11th birthday: three schoolfriends and me plus mum, who lied b[…]

FT readers who are interested in writing about music and the specifics of its history in the UK, I have organised a treat for you (if you live in or near London, or happen to be visiting in precisely two weeks time = May 15-16 2015). It is THIS: a co[…]

(Hoisted from comments on Tom’s thread re-exploring LP-listening in the age of the no-longer moored individual song)
So Tom had put Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis on his list, and in response the thread had discussed the mechanics of politics of[…]

so yesterday i had my first piano lesson in 37 years (ie my teacher wasn’t born when i had my last one): i went in VERY butterfly-stomachy — and came out combination buzzed&psyched, bcz it was AWESOME. Here’s why:
i: i like the teache[…]

Sometimes you’re reading a book for purely aimless diversion and it strikes you that someone — some book-burrowing Arne Saknussemm — was there before you. I can’t really claim that C.S. Lewis ever read Donald S.Johnson’s Phantom Isl[…]

very quickly (since i am DEFINITELY meant to be doing something else: writing a project proposal on quite a fierce deadline), i just wanted to scribble this about HINTERLAND/Y GWYLL. Much anticipated since it first ran last year on SC4 — round […]

warning: this is an insider-baseball tl;dr epic, responding to various questions frank kogan asked in comments on the oasis post (i.e. here and here and here and here and here and here), which i’ve placed here^^^ so as not to further derail that di[…]

“THESE HAPPY FEET ARE ALL WE NEED”: some thoughts about dress-up and dance and video, motion and provocation, Adam Ant and us…
Above is the title to the presentation I gave in Seattle at the EMP Pop Conference 2014 (24-27 April), theme Go! Musi[…]