I am from Glasgow. I speak a dialect.

He is from Leeds. He has an accent.

She is from London. She doesn’t talk properly.

With all of the apostrophes scattered around here, it’s obvious that Priti Patel dropping the gs at the end of word irritates a lot of people. I think it’s probably the only thing she has in her favour. She has […]

It is entertaining, and you can see it is the same character. I’ve seen Endeavour, the young Morse, and I can’t believe that he is the same person as the sour Morse that John Thaw played. It would only be 20 years […]

Mank, as a black and white film about the making of a black and white film, must have annoyed her twice over.

I liked it, a bit too long, but lots of atmosphere and good performances, particularly from Gary […]

Michell Gyrodec? Is this what’s she been doing since she left Bakeoff?

A new fish and chip shop opened up a year or so ago here, in North London, and one of the things they sold was a wally. It turned out to be a pickled gherkin. I’d never heard them called this, but someone I know […]

Anybody listened to it yet? My copy arrived yesterday, and I’ve played it twice. I’m not sure I have much more to say than it’s pretty good. If I heard any of these tracks without knowing who they were by, I’d s […]

By coincidence, I’ve been rereading a few of his books over the past month or so. The Spy… still stands out his masterpiece – I’d forgotten how short it was, and how much he gets in. One of the best 20th century […]

It’s not that kind of show. I have to say it is quite good, but watching this and some other Scandinavian and British crime series, a new set of cliches or tropes seem to have emerged which are as fixed as those o […]

This was interesting as well. A programme on Radio 4 presented by Nitin Sawhney about the making of the album, including interviews with Olivia Harrison and some of the musicians involved like Bobby Whitlock

People like Us, which was one of the first comedies to pick up on the fly on the wall documentaries which were around in the nineties and use the style for comedy. Each week, the reporter followed around someone […]

In some cases that’s true. Most people don’t get it follow the minutiae of politics and go with a party or politician they think they can trust. Some cases do cut through and go beyond party lines like Cum […]

And Diane Abbott wasn’t sacked, she stood down from the front bench when Corbyn resigned.

Channel 4 started showing all of Cheers a couple of months ago, with two episodes every weekday at around 9.00. I thought it would be disappointing, but it’s still very funny. They manage to keep the Sam and […]

Johnson has as much will-power as a balloon on a stick, and that’s why he’s doing nothing. But people are usually terrified of bullies, even when they have the ability to sack them.

I think my experience is pre […]

As far as I remember, Sean Connery’s character starts to suspect that Marnie isn’t who she claims to be when she gets panicked and her accent slips into her original Southern one. At the same time, no-one at any […]

It might not be the filmmakers’ intention, but it did remind me that Bowie was quite a gauche or naff figure in the early days when he was floundering around with images in a search for fame. And he was from time […]

My uncle was an early immigrant to Thailand. He was in the RAF in the second world war in the Far East, and when he was demobbed he stayed out there in Bangkok. He told my mother that there were only a few hundred […]

He’s worth looking into. He writes the Diary spoofs in Private Eye, and also a more general humorous column and book reviews in the Daily and Sunday Mail. He’s been around in various publications for some time, […]

It is very good – as Podicle says, it is like someone collated the most interesting bits from other Beatles books. But as he does this, you also see how the Beatles had an impact on so many lives, and as he is not […]