Britpop Is Back! That’s the premise of this Sunday’s Observer Music Monthly cover story – but here’s the twist: Britpop now means Busted and Sugababes, who are posed like synchronised swimmers on a monster Union Jack. The stor[…]

Some talk on the “blogosphere” about “Regressive Rock”, (80s schmindie-indie to you and I) particularly from K-punk and the resurgent Marcello. Broadly speaking Mark Kpunk is against it, and Marcello is if not wholeheartedly f[…]

Tyrannosaurs Make Funky Dancers: cheap games alert for UK readers – Woolworth’s is selling off Chad Valley toys on a Buy One Get One Half Price offer. Since Chad Valley are already the Kwik-Save of the kids’ games world this represe[…]

Eloquent and angry response to Jim Robinson’s Irony And Its Malcontents piece. I think Jim R’s been slightly misread, though: he’s arguing for irony as a mode of listening, not the mode. In the case of Johnny Cash, eulogists have qu[…]

Spamwatch: the FT email accounts are still getting lots of boring old African dictators but an exciting new trend on the horizon is the garbled subject spam. First off Rayad Corkhill mails me to say “YFggh GGet a huge dink dxxr”, then it&[…]

Decadence alert: following the Nintendo price cut Isabel and I are now a two-console family. I feel a bit guilty about buying a GameCube even at its current steal of a price (cheaper than the GBA even!) – and not just because I already have a P[…]

Crisis Averted: we’ve found a guest editor for NYLPM. Two guest editors actually, who’ll get a week each. Who are these modern-day Herculi? One of them is American and has a weblog already, and one of them is British and doesn’t (un[…]

What I’ve Been Listening To[…]

Guest Editor Wanted: As you might know I’m getting married on November 1st, and I’ll be away for a couple of weeks after that. Popular will go on hiatus, and my co-editors will of course not be affected at all, so the other FT weblogs wil[…]

Robin celebrates the British media ignoring Nigella Lawson picking an Eminem track on Desert Island Discs. But Alexis Petridis says that people did make a fuss (and that it was a Dr.Dre track). Who will lead me through this web of lies?!? On the face[…]