What do we learn from Mike Reed’s appearance on Life Laundry? Once again, the show serves up actually quite powerful psychological renewal, disguised as a simple exercise in house-clearing. Read’s refusal to empty his boxes of rubbish did[…]

If Alex is right about the BBC’s faux-populist ploy (see post re Fame Academy three entries down), it’s certainly further evidence of its long-running self-vivisection project. In its early days it could rely on the same system as the res[…]

CHEAP FOOD I LOVE: The Gregg’s Sausage Roll
I was first introduced to the Gregg’s sausage roll while living on Record Exchange wages in Wood Green. The deal was 4 of them for 99p, which would keep me going for most of a Saturday. Nowadays[…]

Writing teenage fiction – it’s a funny old game. If you hit the right notes, fortune and glory shall be yours. More probably, you’ll cock it up completely, because after all, who really understands teenagers except other teenagers. […]

Test The Nation is back again – like the Sunday Times Rich List (exactly as meaningful and a fiftieth as fun), TTN is showing every sign of turning into some kind of imposed ‘tradition’ that supposedly comes round once a year but in[…]

‘Got your number!’ yell the drunken oafs in the bar, harassing some hapless woman who has dropped a glass; ‘Got your number!’ shout the kids in the park to anyone who passes; ‘Got your number!’ cry yet more childre[…]

Call me old-fashioned, but stand-up rows on prime-time Saturday night TV strike me as unedifying and unprofessional. Which is probably why ITV is coming out so solidly on top in the Pop Idol vs. Fame Academy stakes: it’s got less to lose, less […]

Step in the Arrhenius: the cartoon wall Pete links to reminds me of a couple of amazing Lars Arrhenius pieces I’ve seen over the last year or two: his terrific A-Z (at Peer) which had one of those flow-diagram comic art thing laid out across th[…]

What a difference a beat makes! Both of these tracks are channelling the spirit of ’81 Tim Hopkins was talking about below – a kind of wired weakness, a sussed vulnerability, a stumble into hoped excitement – I was wondering if the guy on t[…]

Golborne Road in West London is a variety-show of foods. Portuganese pastries, Carribbean food stalls, Moroccan restaurants of course, and there’s even “Cockneys” just round the corner on Portobello Road selling cheap salty-mutton p[…]