I’ve thought before that it never occurred to teenage me in the 80s that the music would still be the mainstay of the most popular national radio station 4 decades later. Even then I was more of a chin stroking a […]

There was !!! (Pronounced Chick Chick Chick), and Sheeran’s naming ofalbums with mathematical symbols.

I’m firmly in the suburbs here, so it’s the occasional fox, or rabbits on a local path known as The Bunny Walks (though not nearly as many as there used to be – maybe something to do with the foxes). Birdlife is […]

That’s a rather good programme, and led to me watching the crisp and biscuit episodes too. It made me think about the opinions I bring to snack products when I buy them, but I was interested to see the men (and u […]

I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It’s the book that I had hoped the first one would be, though people more interested in a coming of age narrative might disagree.

That sounds like the confectionary version of crack! Despite the well deserved disdain for American cholate below, peanut butter M+Ms are insanely delicious.

I’ve also read that US chocolate was originally made with off milk, leading to a distinctive tang of vomit in the resulting product. These days fresh milk is used but an artificial vomit flavouring* is added for t […]

I’m no connoisseur and am happy with Cadbury’s whole nut. Fruit and chocolate have always struck my palate as a complete mismatch, and much as I’m sure I would enjoy developing a taste for the more grown up high […]

Well, if we’re doing writers turned musicians as well as the other way triune, here are The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers (Mark Bellingham, Chris Brookmyre, Val McDermid and others) performing a thematically app […]

Oh, and how could I have forgotten Nick Cave? His novels are And the Ass Saw the Angel and The Death of Bunny Munro.

Dylan and Cohen both published novels of course. I haven’t read either’s, but I think it’s generally agreed that they don’t play to their creators’ strengths.

And let us not forget, as if we could, singer, […]

It’s pretty painful to watch. Based on this edit Stewart was in the wrong, and it’s hard to imagine outtakes which would excuse or even improve his behaviour. Corden does use direct eye contact and his phy […]

It’s a sunny morning here, but Beth Gibbons’ contribution to the 2020 Rime of the Ancient Mariner Big Read project will give you chills on the cheeriest day.

Fun fact. Emily Dickinson wrote almost all of her poems in the same metre, 8 syllables then 6, with the emphasis on every second one.

This means that once you find a song with the same rhythm you can sing any […]

Annnd … Covid has stopped play.

Canadian actor Rick Jones, best known to our demographic as Yoffy from Fingerbobs, has keft us to make hand puppets in a better place. Here he us on the influence of dope on children’s […]

‘as talented a poet as he was lyricist’. Well, quite.

Your last point is key. It doesn’t matter to a manager or anyone else if the employee is completing the work required of them by getting their head down and ploughing though it, or by stops and starts based a […]

The general rule is that song lyricists write lousy poetry and poets write lousy song lyrics. Cohen was an exception, because he could do both and knew the difference. I don’t know very much of his poetry, but […]