1. My contribution to Da Capo Best Music Writing 2008 (actually you can read this, since it’s one of my Pitchfork Poptimist columns from last year. But to maintain a figleaf of commercial appeal I am not saying which!).
2. My dozen contributio[…]

Before I get to the meat and potatoes (noodles and dumplings) of this article, I want to point out something truly amazing about Kung Fu Panda. It is a kids film, with a fat, over-eating hero, forced often into bizarre and contortionist body position[…]

And perhaps more importantly – who cares? If the impending closure of the obnoxiously “Web 2.0” BBC Sound Index this Friday is any guide, the answer is pretty clear.
Oh sure, the site boasts more than 22 million “comments, pos[…]

Having mentioned ’60s superheroes, at Marvel and DC, and Alan Moore, I thought I’d talk about those who tried to take the genre somewhere else in past years.
Steve Gerber
It was Steve Gerber who got me back into comics in the ’70s, […]

WATCH THIS VIDEO. It’s a LOVE STORY. It’s like REMAINS OF THE DAY 2.0. The greatest love story ever blogged. erm, set against an epic backdrop of the deep south and the american civil war CSS standards compliancy and web-browser wars.[…]

When Jeff Wayne was hunting for a musical way to express the horror and chaos of a Martian invasion, it was to Led Zeppelin he turned. The synthesiser riff on “Horsell Common And The Heat Ray”, so evocative of war-blasted Wokingham and Ch[…]

Live role-playing is a great idea. YES IT IS. All the stuff 95% of gamesmasters are really terrible at – verbal scene setting, establishing who is where when, getting across the physicality of the gameworld (and, indeed, the physics) – de[…]

15. The Prodigy – Everybody In The Place
I really don’t like rollercoasters. My childhood dreams of being an astronaut were utterly quashed after having a go on an Orbitron and instantly developing not only severe motion sickness but a fi[…]

All of my favourite newspaper strips were at the comedy end of the market – and it is worth noting here how big an influence Segar’s Popeye was on adventure strips. Nonetheless, there were some great adventure strips, back in the days whe[…]

i. Tooty Frooties are still being made!
ii. They are still completely horrible :([…]