Another in our series of posts on Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers comic.
The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” came out in August 1963, started building radio play, then hit the Billboard Top 10 by the end of September. A kid heari[…]

I see from my Twitter feed (Lena Dunham Panopticon Division) that the song “I Love It” by Icona Pop is “happening” now. That’s fine by me, I like that song. One reason I like it is because of its fiendish lyrical meta-tr[…]

(While I am in slow recovery from virus mode, here’s an article from the Tumblr vaults.)

I have been listening to the Village People’s discography recently. Village People albums may not have seemed especially good value for money, because t[…]

GET UR FROAK ON
While most of my online acquaintances were geeking out today at the thought of a new David Bowie album, our house was far more excited by the announcement of new Pokémon games – Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, the first on Nintendo’s […]

Reading The Hobbit to Lytton (just turned 6) – Beorn has just sent the party Mirkwood-bound and re-ponied, and this (plus recent Hobbit-discussion on here) seems a good place to take stock.
The Hobbit is a degree tougher going for kids than any[…]

When Was The X-Factor’s Imperial Phase?
I got bored with the recent series of the X-Factor, and I was not alone: the ratings this year have crashed by a few million. The post-mortems are beginning: the editor of the Radio Times wasted no time i[…]

At the weekend I finished reading The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe to my kids – audience L (almost 6) and D (3 1/2) liked it, or maybe they like the ritual of bedtime stories and found it tolerable content to fill said ritual, I dunno. My D[…]

I remember Hellblazer being announced, way back whenever it was, and feeling underwhelmed and disappointed: a silly name, and not even written by Alan Moore. And the truth is I never warmed to the comic – now axed by DC after a 300-long run. So[…]

This essay contains enormous spoilers for the 2010s run of the Marvel comic Journey Into Mystery. If you haven’t read it – the Kieron Gillen run, at least – and you have any interest in doing so, don’t read this first. Seriously.
1.
A theme o[…]

X-Factor 2012 Live Shows, Week 3
“Club Classics” week – but what could this mean, in the land of the X-Factor? If you guessed maximum rave alert, go to the back of the class. If, however, you guessed ballads and acoustic guitars, yo[…]