And now I get it. This is low-key storytelling at its best, the weaving of anecdotes into a whole: into a life. You can only tell a life in stories if that life is not too mundane, but what Murray challenges himself to do is walk the tightrope of a v[…]

Much has been written about how much Douglas Adams is honoured in the new Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy movie. Nothing has been written about an equally significanct nod to another god of radio. Look at the posters to Hitch-Hikers, the ones on bus[…]

Oil Of Olay, unlike other anti-aging creams, deals with the seven signs of aging, not just wrinkles and lines. Seven stages? What are these? And how exactly does a face cream deal with cellular degeneration, senility, impotence and tutting when young[…]

I tend to think that all screwball comedies of the thirties are a priori better written, directed and acted than any comedies being made these days. The awful truth is that this is not the case, and actually the superior batch are a small bunch (Pres[…]

I really, really did not expect to see the set pieces directly in the novel. Mrs Robinson naked and the whole race to the church at the end are so visual, such staples as classic cinema that it comes as quiet a shock to see these described almost ide[…]

I stumbled across The End on BBC3 last Thursday, and a more jolly, optimistic programme you could not imagine to find in the schedules. An hour long show, predicated on Groundhog Day where a scientist trying to get to America to run his potentially w[…]

Underneath The Archesss….
Peckham Rye Station. Underneath. Now Neil Gaiman – King Of The Goths – wrote a shonky TV series called Neverwhere which took place in the forgotten places under London. Bar Story is the licensed establishme[…]

This joy was specifically to mop up films I had never seen from – ahem – the canon so I feel more confident when I slag them off/talk anout them. Note, that is more confident, I can currently slam down a nicely nuanced argument about why […]

Now I ranted on Pepsi Max a couple of weeks ago (and no-one responded to its Maxiness). But now there is Pepsi Max Twist Lemon & Lime. It tastes, unsurprisingly, of copper sulphate. But it is the Max philosophy that I find amusing. Yet again we […]

Phoneboxes around the country have started advertising what promises to be ITV’s new version of Ice Warriors*. The idea behind it is quiet simply a wrong headed attempt to rip-off Strictly Come Dancing, the almost (but crucially not quite) impr[…]