In a region better known for its grapes, the owners of the wineries (or bodegas) of northern Spain have turned their attention to front-of-house impressions.
The Marquis de Riscal’s new bodega and hotel at Elciego in Rioja is perhaps the most d[…]

Imaginary City #773 “urville” from the 20 years + imagining of one Gilles Trehin. There is a book forthcoming. Perhaps this is where St Elsewhere is found?[…]

one of the more unsettling — if possibly misleading — epiphanies of being an interweb moderator was the realisation (while reading about Jack T. Ripper, possibly the tiresome p.cornwell’s VERY EXTREMELY RISIBLE anti-sickert case) th[…]

Is HALF FRENCH. Winner of the BBC wots design good for award is Concorde – a notably English word there. Well done Half French Half British British Design winner.
(I wonder if this was done in France if Concorde would even come close?)[…]

Have you been to Selfridges recently (and I don’t mean its dreadful flash heavy website)? The department store which has never had the balls to use “We don’t just sell fridges” as a slogan, has turned all punk. There are effor[…]

Rob Long’s Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke purports to be a no holds barred insiders look at being an American TV sit-com writer. Wait a second, does that mean there are holds barred, soft-soap stories of the tricksy world of American TV developmen[…]

Finally finished Dominic Sandbrook’s history of the late 50s and early 60s, Never Had It So Good. For a massive book – 700 pages covering only 7 years – it still feels a bit insubstantial in places, but it was an entertaining read. […]

On the face of it, this is a simple philistinic story about an American kid who stuck his used chewing gum on an expensive painting. Singlehandedly the unnamed child became either
a) a disgrace
b) the bright new artist in the style of Jake & Din[…]

Put The Book Back On The Shelf (no really – this is a comic shop, not a library)
THE BELLE & SEBASTIAN COMIC.
Read it and feel all sensitive.[…]

This very odd 3-issue miniseries by Gerard Jones and Mark Badger came out in 1995 – as a Batman story it falls a little flat, mostly because you can guess who the villain is very quickly. The plot – surrounding a Charlie Parker analogue w[…]