Corporate Social Responsibility. Don’t you just love the sound of a phrase that is instantly abbreviated into meaninglessness as CSR. What does it mean? It means that those of us who run bars are socially responsible for making sure that the pu[…]

Mike’s Pop Pilgrimages
No.4 – Rachel and James, Manchester
A different sort of pilgrimage this time. Rachel was a college hanger-on. One of those lost souls who drifts about campus, knows everyone, but doesn’t technically belong the[…]

Or “The Bravery single”. This was the dread revelation that came upon me after buying Now 60, as headphone listening transformed “half-memorable blur on the office radio” into “sharp well-produced pop single”. Web […]

He always struck me as a Scottish version of Tony Wilson, though without Wilson’s luck of occasionally helping create something great. Ego is a useful thing, it can get you through an awful lot of self-doubt. But 16 Years Of Alcohol, Jobson&#82[…]

a born bystander’s deliberate legacy:
Ransome played chess with Lenin (and beat him). As a young geezaesthete in bohemian Chelsea, Ransome hung out with G. K. Chesterton’s brother, as well as future war-poet Edward Thomas. Ransome’[…]

I haf written my first FT essay as such in a while — I suspect some will look at it askance. Attempts to talk about things in a broader scale as well as a specific one, so hopefully who the essay is about won’t annoy, well, most everyone[…]

Christian Marclay at the Barbican
This is a tremendously enjoyable show. There’s lots of work to see, and it’s very varied. Album sleeves painted over, a tuba and trumpet joined at the mouthpiece, photos of things to do with sound, a ludi[…]

(Since some say Placebo is worse than the Cure)
“Absolute shit. The worst. ‘I’m depraved, me’”
Nobody likes Placebo. Except their fans, and nobody is a fan. Except the people who buy the records and show up at the shows, etc[…]

REM of course. And the B52’s. And Pylon I suppose, but REM mostly. I’ve wanted to visit for years. I remember old interviews with the band where they raved about the city. I grew up on REM and I stick by them even now, in their run-out-of[…]

“EX-PO-SI-TI-ON! EX-PO-SI-TI-ON!”
the full title for the 1965 peter cushing/dr who movie shd be dr who and the daleks: WHICH IS BIGGEST IDIOT????!?. The first thing the Doctor says in the Dalek city is “Let’s all go different[…]