Beyond The Royal Nipsy.

I’m glad that prostate cancer is finally getting some serious time in the sun. For far too long it’s been unfairly overshadowed by so many other cancers. As we all know the big daddy on the block for a long time was good old lung cancer. If you didn’t have lung cancer you just weren’t […]

Giving In To Liam.

For many years I have held Liam Gallagher up, or rather down, as one of the great boils on the nose of modern popular music. It wasn’t so much the voice as the attitude, the short earned swagger, the arrogance and the sheer thick-headedness of the man. It was a combination of characteristics that somehow […]

The Last Post.

When I was a boy you could trust the Royal Mail. When I was a boy the Post Office was something to be spoken about with hushed tones of affectionate reverence. Quite how they both managed to turn to rot with such resounding synchronicity is one of the more laughable mysteries of our time, but […]

What A Relief.

Not a spot of profanity in sight. I can do it, but it just feels like swearing is always so much easier. Well, that’s another year done and dusted. Another year further from the happiness of youth (applicable only if you had a happy one) and another year closer to a death we can’t yet […]

The Same Old Christmas.

Is Christmas anything other than an extended exercise in pounding, grinding, painful repetition? That’s not really a question, because you know I’m right. Sure, every year something new gets thrown into the pot but in the end that pot still smells of the same old, same old, same old rotting Christmassy turkey carcass. Jesus would […]

Boats In Our Moat.

Stop the boats. Just stop them. Can’t you see what they’re doing, those bloody effing floaty boats? They’re ruining this country. Inside out; not to mention left, right and centre. To be honest I think it’s fair to say that we’d all be a lot better off without any boats whatsoever. I mean, what have […]

MacGowan, MacGowan, MacGone.

Shane MacGowan was buried yesterday. They say he died last week but he really died a long time ago, like Elvis when he joined the army (or so said John Lennon), though I can’t imagine any army finding a use for poor Shane. And then he was buried. Fast, the Irish way. The Irish don’t […]

The Fall Of The Machines.

The boiler is knackered. It decides for itself when to come on (which in fairness does mark it out as more consciously intelligent than most boilers) and, just as crucially, when to go off. I can’t speak for everyone, but I think it’s safe to say that when it comes to this time of year […]

Out With A Bing.

You can say whatever you like about Friends. It may be dated and have all kinds of behaviour and dialogue that some unbearable prude would like you to think bordered on essence-of-Viking, but that doesn’t really matter as it isn’t true and, crucially, Friends had the advantage of being funny. And what’s even more important […]

The Middle Ground.

It was raining outside this morning. Proper rain. Mild (for this time of year, as the saying goes), but wet. The nights have stopped starting to draw in and are now just drawing away of their own accord, painting over the light with murky abandon. Summer and early Autumn are lost and now we shuffle […]