Matt Ingram is dead right about those nasty Putumayo covers – Isabel actually owns Gypsy Caravan and the sleeve has always been a bit distressing. In other ways the label is a bit more innovative – their ‘Playground’ series of[…]

Flaming hell Michael Ignatieff, in an interview in the FT a few weekends ago, made some interesting, informed comments about the Iraq situation and the future of the UN. On the strength of this, I picked up a copy of his new novel, Charlie Johnson […]

British post-apocalypse television courtesy of Graham Nelson. Having blogged about Survivors I was looking for stuff on The Changes and pondering something about this genre of telly, when I came across this section of Graham’s largely-neglected[…]

Driving in Unfamiliar London Considered as a Chart-Topping Computer Game: I haven’t done it in an age, I realised, but the housewarming (excellent party for a nice flat: thanks for inviting me guys!!) was far far across town (in the wild south,[…]

Introduction
Welcome to the Ninth Freaky Trigger pop music Focus Group.
What’s all this then? We took twenty recent hit singles (released between July and September in the UK) and got a focus group to rate them each out of ten and comment on th[…]

What is it with teen comedies employing early nineties British indie as their main themes. The American Pie movies have Laid by James as their main theme; supposedly for the rude line ‘She only comes when she’s on top‘. And now Camp[…]

Watching TV while you’re on the phone: my friend AB lives in Toronto, and when she calls three or four times a year, we tend to talk for hours. So she’s describing Matthew Barney’s new Cremaster movie, and whether the film Seabiscui[…]

Finally, proof that the long awaited move from Highbury to Ashburton Grove IS going ahead, the “Hollywood Kebab” opposite Holloway Road Tube has changed it’s name to “The Arsenal Cafe”. Rumours that London Metropolitan […]

COMMENTARY CONUNDRA
(Sorry for the delay there, things can get away from you! Onward.)
ALIEN
Commentator: Ridley Scott
A veddy veddy British English speaker is Ridley Scott. But that’s a bit unfair, that’s more American stereotyping and h[…]

The Proclaimers — The BBC Sessions
No music lover needing to keep in with the latest fads can afford to miss the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. Yesterday morning, for instance, they turned their thoughts to the erudite phenomenon of British p[…]