I am still listening to a new-to-me LP every day! A lot – in fact, most – of those LPs come from this year. So here are 30 MORE albums I’ve enjoyed a lot, in some kind of ranking. Confusingly perhaps, these are not all records relea[…]

We’re almost halfway through 2017 and the world hasn’t blown up yet! Well done us. Let’s make the most of our remaining time and have a nice chat about music: this year my personal favourites seem to be mostly house/techno rather th[…]

Ah Death. May your cold embrace be delayed, but when you grasp me at least do it with the humility and grace you do in this week’s Sound Barrier podcast. For this week Peter Baran and Pamela Hutchinson discuss the recently re-released Der Müde[…]

Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released the week of my seventh birthday — to date my favourite (an affective fact unlikely to be challenged this year). Seven is the best number.
But it didn’t come into our family lives until […]

On the fifth Sound Barrier we have no guests, but an extremely animated discussion about – oh, did you see what I did there. We are comparing a Pixar classic with a brand new, but dialogue free, movie. So the dialogue free movie The Red Turtle […]

This fortnights Sound Barrier podcast tackles comedy for the first time. And in particular the comedic potential of detectives and drugs. On the modern corner with have British meta farce Mindhorn, where Julian Barrett plays Richard Thorncroft who pl[…]

Watchmen by Alan Moore
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Modern comics events seem to demand endless lead-ins and spin-offs, and sadly Doomsday Clock, from the blockbuster team of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, is no exception to this trend. Watchmen, the extende[…]

FAKE NEWS! But REAL POP! In April I went to Seattle and talked about Eurovision and Brexit, and now thanks to the miracle of YouTube and Bruce from my work’s Graphics Department you too can experience my presentation. It isn’t quite the s[…]

The fourth instalment of my project to listen to a new (to me) album every day for a year: one track from each of the LPs I listened to in April. I’m pleased with this one – though this is a playlist of two halves, and those wishing to av[…]

The Sound Barrier podcast is back with an episode about women up against the patriarchy, the odds and some mighty gusting wind. And we look at two actresses, one at the height of her powers and popularity, in Lillian Gish, and one virtual unknown who[…]