50 Shades of Grayling.

It is little wonder that we are sinking into ever deeper levels of shit when we have people like Chris Grayling in a position of political power. Some politicians are plain awful: think Corbyn, Johnson, Gove – pompous, ineffective, barely good enough to call wankers on their best day. Some are clearly well past their […]

R.I.P Mark Hollis.

If you haven’t heard of Mark Hollis then you’ve missed out on a little slice of musical magic. Literally now, because it was announced last night that he had died (following the ubiquitous ‘short illness’). As a songwriter and musician and pioneer he genuinely was right out there in front of the bunch and the […]

Run for cover.

I’ve just got back from dropping someone at the station and at the traffic lights I was flipping through the radio stations when it latched onto some unknown source and it was a singer and his band doing a cover medley of Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On?’ and ‘Mercy, Mercy Me’. Both are excellent songs […]

Brit of a headache.

It makes sense that given the current political and economic uncertainty as the result of a Brexit process that feels about as much fun as an awkward birth that we get a Brit Awards to match it. Brexit has been boring and frustrating and dangerous all at once; which gives it thrice the edge over […]

One man’s junk……

Finding myself with all kinds of useless bits drifting through my head but with none of them warranting a post of their own I feel obliged to scatter them before you instead of letting them fade away to nothing. It is highly possible that not long from now you may wish I had let the […]

Valentine. Saint or Twat?

Here it comes: another Valentine’s Day. Another day of most righteous lurve. 24 hours of deep dish luuurvin’ that surely no livin’, lovin’ lady could possibly resist. The law of lurve insists that this be the day when the lurve light gets turned on to the max and lo, all our lovin’ be expressed in […]

Thanks, Coco. But I’d rather not.

What on earth is going on with the world? Why is everyone so insistent on changing things? I know that the old ‘if it ain’t broke’ saying doesn’t and shouldn’t always apply, but surely we should let some things stay the same. Just for comfort. Just for the sake of nostalgia. Just because they’re better […]

The perils of freedom.

“What’s wrong darling? You seem especially tortured and pensive tonight, yet grizzled and manly nevertheless. Is something the matter?” “Not really, well, I don’t know. It’s just that I did a big interview today with a newspaper to promote my latest film which involves another caricature of myself as a man seeking vigilante justice.” “Yes, […]

The Eagle Had Landed. Allegedly.

Marriage can be a funny thing. Sunday mornings should be sacred, only not necessarily in a religious way. This Sunday just gone (which is when I started this) I was woken early because ‘the wife’ was off to see her mother. I have to go with her once in a while, an experience which frequently […]

They ain’t pretty but they hear real well.

£5.99. That’s what it cost me. £5.99 on Amazon, with a free download too. An introduction to the greatest guitar player I’d never heard before. I’d heard of him, I read a lot in these areas, but in my stubborn little way I’d never bothered to give him a try. He was once labelled the […]