You know music is buggered when bands rip off others bands’ names, let alone their music. Is it designed to entice myopic fans of 80s folk/indie, who will buy tickets to see Pogue Mahone and Echo and the B […]

Poor Dave – he sadly died aged 58; he was a genuine cult hero amongst Bolton fans. I seem to recall him describing Tony Kelly as Zico!

Love that! Reminds me of Bolton’s in-house commentator, Dave ‘Ding-dong-do’ Higson.

Yep, a bad ‘un, but you could always forgive Barry – he was the best. At least it’s not as awful as Motty’s limp correlation of the Year of the Rat with Kevin Ratcliffe lifting the FA Cup. I’m just glad it wasn’t […]

Was it Nora Jones, Arthur?

According to George Harrison, Brian Epstein offered the Beatles
£50 p/w for life instead of other royalties. Just imagine if they’d said yes….

Just my opinion, but Nirvana are the most overrated band of all time. They did 4 good songs, and that’s it.

Looks like a young Robin Gibb holding a pic of an aged Barry.

Stay on these Roads is a lovely tune, albeit slightly hidden beneath an 80s sheen.

I studied a lot of poetry at uni, and we read a lot of Eliot in detail. I don’t recall people enjoying it, as such; I appreciated the intertextuality and the deconstruction of traditional forms, and it felt i […]

In the 80s, George Michael and Elton John sounded like they were from Tennessee.

Tim Buckley, certainly in his earlier work, sounded very English – like a medieval minstrel.

Andrew Neil’s dismantling of Nicola Sturgeon’s arguments ( interview before the last election) doesn’t bode well for the practicalities of an independent Scotland. Sturgeon simply couldn’t answer the major […]

(Puts glasses on and peers like a 19th-century handmaiden) Ah, bugger! Predictive text on iPhone!
I didn’t mind a Hooch, back in the 90s. The blackcurrant one wasn’t too bad…after your eyes stopped stinging.

Hooch -specifically the lemonade one – went away but has retuned.

My abiding memory of Fray Bentos pies is cutting into them – and realising they were 99% puff pastry, with just enough actual filling to cover a titmouse’s water biscuit.

I once found what I thought was a h […]

Yes, I like Death of a Ladies’ Man. I remember reading somewhere that the vocals were only intended to be guide vocals, but Spector wouldn’t let ol’ Len record them again.

Memories is one of his best records, […]

The nurse at the sperm bank asked me if I’d like to masturbate in the cup. I said, “Well, I’m pretty good, but I don’t think I’m ready to compete just yet.”

Yep, they’ve got their grubby fingers in many dubious pies. You may have seen the HSBC adverts espousing the idea that no man is an island/we’re all liberal and European; they don’t mention that, at the behes […]

Are Steve McManaman and Andre Rieu morphing into each other?

Why does Andre seem to be – perpetually – on the set of a 90s ferrero rocher advert?

I firmly believe the coming year will answer these […]

The Faith album is a great listen: packed with top tunes. At his best, his music was something a lot of people get sniffy about, i.e. it was fun and enjoyable.

I think he fell to the eternal curse of the pop […]