A year or two ago I saw The Bookshop Band as opening act for The Unthanks. I found them a bit precious and twee, but the highlight was a song with a lyric made up from famous first lines of books. The only […]

Too long; didn’t read.

I’ve just looked it up – Thea Gilmore, 3 December 2013. I remember seeing a piece on the London news about the Jazz Cafe being reopened after a refurb.

Don’t know what you could possibly mean …

That’s why Sunak rolled out furlow so quickly, it was already planned for Brexit. Or am I drifting into the arena of the tin foil hat here?

This is the one we’re going to

I’ll be interested to see how they manage distancing of the performers because the other, pre-Covid, times I saw this line-up there were 13 or 14 people on stage at once. I hav […]

We’re going to a socially distanced gig at the Jazz Cafe on the 9th of December. As soon as the tiers were announced (London for them and Essex for us both in 2) I received an email explaining that the gig could s […]

I was with Waterstone’s for 17 or 18 Christmases. In the earlier years towns actually got quiet mid afternoon on Christmas Eve, by the last it was exactly as you say. Stay late on Christmas Eve to put the sale i […]

I’ll check it out. I haven’t really kept up with Wilco, but fans might like this extract from his book.

The two chaps at the front discussing head-shaving techniques don’t look so engaged.

‘Arthur’s got plenty’ was there ever a less genial or more sinister pater familias in advertising than this?

I always thought that the Dad in this British Pork advert was one sinister bastard. My guess: that's not pork they're eating. pic.twitter.com/Odk2LcNCSZ

— Scarred for Life (@ScarredForLife2) December 23, 2017

‘Pea and ham? From a chicken? Now that’s clever.’
‘Acccchhrington Stanley? ‘Oo are dey?’ ‘Exaccchh’ly!’

Yet polls I have seen suggest that a large majority would prefer restrictions to remain over Christmas to avoid the risk of another spike before a vaccination programme can be rolled out. I can only assume that […]

I believe so, but she was one of the talking heads hired to express outrage.

I saw that on a magazine programme where Vanessa Feltz and Cliff Richard decried the ‘banning of Christmas’, despite the town in question having decorations saying ‘Christmas’ everywhere, advertising the Christm […]

A large part of my Christmas grinchiness might be down to working in retail from my early 20s to late 30s. It was always my favourite time to work (if you don’t get a kick out of selling your product as fast as y […]

I might be more sympathetic to them if I ate meat, but I’ve never really seen the appeal of being outdoors for its own sake. They always seem to last so long as well.

OK, I’ve played it twice consecutively this morning and it’s better and catchier than I remembered. I don’t know about Album of the Year, but it’s certainly a lovely soundtrack to a grey day wfh.

It’s a risk I’m prepared to take.

I … I … I can’t. I had to mute ‘barbecue’ and ‘BBQ’ on Twitter after daring to suggest that eating half raw/half burnt food off inadequate tableware while standing up outdoors surrounded by wasps and people […]