Whatever happened to Uncle?: fine article from the Economist on the neglected children’s classic beloved of some Freaky Trigger writers. I think they’re basically right about the books and why they don’t sell – Uncle is a very[…]

Knightsbridge may not strike you as the happiest hunting grounds for a good boozer and in the case of the Beauchamp Tavern you’d be right. Why mention it at all? Because it’s such an object lesson in how not to do a hybrid bar/pub. Its hy[…]

Frank Kogan’s Real Punks Don’t Wear Black is a devastatingly good book. The first evening I read it I found that it shook me up a lot – I recognised the ideals and ideas Frank was chasing, even if I couldn’t have articulated t[…]

Brand Republic brings news of 2006’s first big brand extension clash: both Coke and Pepsi are bringing out coffee-flavoured fizzy drinks at the start of next year.

Coke’s offering is Coca Cola Blak, as seen in this picture – but on[…]

Mona Lisa ‘definitely smiling’
The “computers analyse art” story is perhaps second only to the “scientists have discovered an formula” story in the science spacefiller stakes. Here we see “emotion recognition[…]

Extraordinary late entry from Challenge Business.[…]

Mashed Artichokes??!!: I think the stuff in this article about blood sugar is probably pretty sound however the family Xmas isn’t all about the food and drink, it is a finely calibrated and balanced thing in which ideally every factor that migh[…]

The comic with the worst ending of all time is THE MEAN TEAM, which ran in 2000AD in the 1980s.

This story started as a future gladiator sports story and was alright if you squinted. The Mean Team were the fiercest fighters in a killer capture-the-f[…]

Christmas Ain’t Christmas, New Year Ain’t New Year, Without The One You Love – heartbreak Christmas soul, upped here because of snarl-ups on the Poptimists Advent Calendar.[…]

& speaking of Harry Potter IV, nacho crimes aside it was an enjoyable if long fillum, with Mike Newell the director managing two important things:
– editing JKR – book IV was where the gigantism sets in and though to be fair a lot ha[…]