(Prompted by a great post about designer Barney Bubbles over at Feuilleton.)[…]

The Warrington Hotel was the first pub I visited after moving to London in the summer of 1994. As such, it skewed my expectations of the city’s hostelries: not only was the bar itself a gloriously over-the-top shrine to art nouveau glass, carve[…]

Actual, real live pub science promised this evening at London’s Dana Centre with their Pub Guide to Genetics.
“Find out why DNA can be delightful with genetic blonde Portia Smith, who will be introducing genetics with chromosome cakes and[…]

Meanwhile… Back to lists and stats! The dementedly thorough everyhit.com should provide ample entertainment for those of you missing Tom’s Popular blog these last couple of weeks. Among other things, the site has pleased us greatly by noting […]

…from the band Metric, whose new lp, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, has just been promoted to the A-list on the radio station in my head. On first listen you might peg them as skinny-tie, keytar new wavers, but Haines has got a smart mo[…]

New tv ad for Woolworths last nite: two OAPs cooing over the cd of Permission to Land: ‘Let’s buy it, dear’ it’ll be just like the old days!’. Cut to Ver ‘Ness on the bridge of their spaceship in full stadium handc[…]

‘Camden Joy’ could be the title of some imaginary anthology of Chris Roberts reviews from Melody Maker 1987-1990, and Camden Joy the author is almost as good as that. I first came across him a few years ago when I found a heavily marked-d[…]

From NewPop to… NowPop, and what are we to make of Green Gartside hovering around ‘Someday’ like a very discreet but expensive perfume on the imminent Kylie lp? From the minimal techno of first single ‘Slow’ to the impeccabl[…]

Ahead of forthcoming greatest hits album PopArt, the Pet Shop Boys have put up a streaming preview of the token unreleased track ‘Paris City Boy’. If you were expecting a return to the Desireless/Princess Stephanie francophone glories of […]

1) Can I begin with a footnote?1
It makes sense to do so, since for all intents and purposes the Strokes are a footnote – that least sexy of paratextual props2 – a scribbled quibble in the margin of pop history, not even parasitic (since that w[…]