THE SQUARE TABLE 13 / The Libertines – “Can’t Stand Me Now?”
Pop Factor: 510
“How can anyone still get it up for this?” asked Blissblog a bit ago. Good question. Listening to this I can’t help thinking of wh[…]

As an attempt at a revisionist account of my mother’s cooking (perhaps one day I will be able to discuss cooking without simultaneously discussing my mother, but this is not that day), today, with some friends, I decided to try to incorporate f[…]

The Legend
I just watched this tremendous Jet Li film again, and it has one absolutely magnificent role, that of Jet Li’s mother, played by Josephine Liao. [um, spoiler alert and all that, if it’s applicable to an old movie that’s b[…]

This month’s Sight and Sound features a review of Takashi Miike’s new film Gozu, and tentatively calls 2001’s Visitor Q his masterpiece. The reviewer’s take on Miike’s prolific career (Visitor Q and Ichi the Killer are c[…]

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook
We have been lucky to discover several previously lost diaries of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre stuck in between the cushions of our office sofa. These diaries reveal a young Sartre obsessed not with the void, but […]

Glad It’s All Over: Where have I been? Off for one last – well, maybe – fling with ILM, having fun on the Top 100 Albums of the 00s thread (plus the tracks one which you should find quite easily). I knew the results three weeks ago […]

Hands up who thinks the world’s pubs need more bland, dodgy beer.
(counts) One two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one hundred.
I make that just about everyone, which should mean this comes as good news:
Interbrew/Ambev merge to form world’s bi[…]

My own tale of Notting Hill hipness beyond description — by chance, back in 2000 I was invited to attend the opening night of Alan McGee’s club he started a few months after Creation pissed away the last bits of champagne. What was it ca[…]

Notting Hell
This weekend is the Notting Hill Carnival. Luckily I’m going to Scotland and will be shielded from dancing policemen, incessant steel drumming and ear-killing whistles. Warm cans of Red Stripe are available at inflated prices from […]

Cut your fringe!
You can amuse yourselves here with 1-star reviews of the worst of the Edinburgh Fringe. It’s possible some of these comments are funnier than the shows themselves. Of course, the secret to the Fringe is that everything is blood[…]