There’s a chippy in Warrington called New Cod on the Block, which is, mercifully, not a nod to the Hangin’ Tough hitmakers.

In an episode of Sherlock, the judge directed the jury to find Moriarty guilty. My knowledge of the law is based entirely on six days of jury service, but even I know a judge in England and Wales cannot instruct a […]

The Empty Cup Awards:

Good shout re. Spock. In general, there aren’t that many positive male role models on tv – certainly in terms of dads. Uncle Phil on Fresh Prince always seemed like a good sort!

Yes, I’ve read that too. Many autobiographies – including sports stars – are written to secure serialisation payments (Boris Johnson’s is currently being covered in the Mail). Ashley Cole’s My Defence (ooh, […]

In his diaries, I seem to remember Palin moaning about not getting a knighthood – it put me off him a bit, I confess.

One book I always recommend is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Written in something like his fourth language, it’s a vividly brilliant novella (i.e. not Mill on the Floss, which is a bonus).

Agreed – I was just highlighting how much of a lightning-in-a-bottle player he was. Baggio remains one of my favourite players of all time: he dragged Italy to the final in 94.

Until this thread, I’d completely forgotten about Jarvis Cocker (and his massive head) advertising Eurostar:

It’s all the more extraordinary when you consider he was voted Player of the Tournament at Italia 90…and then only scored one more goal for Italy in his entire career. Seven goals in total, but what an impact.

I love Long Long Long, but it seems really quiet in the mix – you can barely hear the bloody thing. It reminds me of Seems So Long Ago, Nancy by Leonard Cohen, in the sense that it’s great but seems to have been […]

Sad news about Sven. For all we hear about societal decline these days, it’s worth remembering that this got to number 7 in the charts back in 2001. It is the most hideous thing I’ve ever heard, outside of my […]

A woman had a go at a chum of mine because she believed his bunch of bananas took him over the 10-item threshold. That sounded far more like a euphemism than it was meant to.

I used to love Fray Bentos pies in my student days, but I found a lump of fat lurking in one that looked exactly like a human ear.

I’m sure there was an episode of Friends where Rachel (I think) wore an MC5 t-shirt. I can’t imagine anyone on that show was a fan, so at least they flogged some merchandise.

My dad, who is 82, still greets people with the ‘Allo ‘Allo-based catchphrase “Good moaning!’. This means nothing to my teenage nephews and nieces, who nod politely and grimace like Giant Haystacks ripping up a Yellow Pages.

Declan Rice played precisely one forward pass in the whole final. I think that’s pretty suggestive.

Real Madrid – and Courtois as mentioned – didn’t need a great ball-playing goalkeeper when they were hoovering up Champions League trophies: they had two world-class midfielders (Modric/Kroos) who could pass the […]

In fairness to Pickford, his distribution for Everton is decent. I’m assuming he was acting under direct instruction here, which was either a result of an attempt to win the ball back high up, or the fact that D […]

Some extremely vocal England fans believe that, as a footballing nation, we are consistently on a par with Germany, Spain, France and Italy. This is arrant nonsense. A Germany fan the same age as me, for example, […]