“Ah, hello Jonathan Franzen, my old friend. Happy 5th anniversary in my library. No, today is not the day either.”

Yep, this is me too. Especially if I find something on bestbookprice.co.uk for a few quid less than retail. (“A history of the byways of the Welsh Marches? *Fascinating!* …Ooh, this is hard-going though, maybe […]

If you have money left at the end of the month, you’re not vinlying hard enough. Also, don’t worry about your children mixing with your precious collection, you can always sell a couple to afford more vinly.

I’m a sucker for a line extension (missus): I’ve gone through most of the McVitie chocolate digestive variations (orange, lemon, strawberry, marmalade, even the vile cherry bakewell, although I never found […]

Good to hear. It was never much to look at (especially that precinct), but where I lived (Dane Road, off the Washway junction) was fairly quiet and handy for the tram.

Pontypridd: since moving here, we’ve lost M&S, the Co-op and the local council-owned music venue, and gained Sainsbury’s, Costa and a lido (although it was wrecked by flooding last year, just before the pandemic – […]

Lol, I lived in Sale in the late 90s. Even then, the town centre appeared to be dying on its arse. After that, I moved down the road to Altrincham; went back to visit a few years ago and it had morphed into a […]

Cheers. Like the UK goth representation in your playlist too (64-66).

Here’s another great overlooked 80s one, love the vocal on this:

Woar, some great tracks there, many that I can recall from my own mixtapes. “Battleship Chains”, used to love that one but never owned it or even managed tape it off the radio. Hard agree, there _was_ another, […]

I could get behind this. Like Arthur, I’m often left feeling a bit “Is that it?” at gigs but there are many international bands I’d like to catch who are unlikely ever to make it to the UK (especially now) and, if […]

I mean, who doesn’t (apart from wrongers)?

Goodness me, the Saga offices at Folkestone gone, eh? My last site visit when I was in an IT consultancy job *mumble* years ago. I remember it as a fairly desperate place even then. Still, at least they’ve got a […]

One of my teachers worked part-time as a DJ (weddings, parties, etc.) and I used to help him out. For some reason, only the left channel of his deck worked so he used to blast out only half of the stereo image, […]

This is spot-on, and it makes preemptive blocking so much easier.

People currently post all kinds of ghastly abuse under their real names with no small degree of pride, it wouldn’t deter them. Meanwhile, those who require the protection of anonymity would either risk being […]

Loads of albums from my younger days where I played the singles to death but didn’t have the funds to purchase the parent record. It usually turns out there were strong reasons why those tracks were released as […]

I have one of the other four copies then and yes, it’s also my favourite AAE album. “Freeze” is incredible; was very lucky to see them play this at Manchester SU during their brief reunion period.

Julianne Regan’s solo Mice project deserved more notice:

Oh Mr Porter? You’re wasting your time.

If we’re talking about ye olde classics then add two great Cary Grant ones:

Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House

Father Goose

I want the New (there’s only so much you can take from the 1000th play of even a hoary old classic like “Dark Side Of The Moon”), the problem is there’s such an unceasing stream of it and my attention span is now […]