Took the kids to see Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker yesterday afternoon. Before I tell you about the movie, I need to talk about what happened immediately afterwards. My son was thirsty and there was a McDonald’s across the road from the cinema. I figured it was the easiest and quickest way to get him […]
The magic of Ween’s “The Pod”
I’m writing this today because I’ve run out of things to say about the general election. What will be, will be. I would like to apologise also to anyone coming onto this page from somewhere other than the UK, and/or who googled “The Pod” in 2023 and have been thrown by this introductory paragraph. Don’t […]
The Day the Clown Cried: why Boris Johnson’s campaign is falling apart around his ears
In the spring of 1972, comedian Jerry Lewis went into production on a film he directed and starred in entitled “The Day the Clown Cried”. It was about a circus clown who is imprisoned in a Nazi war camp and finds his act appealing to the children there. It ends with Lewis’ character leading some […]
What is real news and what isn’t in the age of Brexit and Trump
For as long as I have been running this blog – and in fact, it was almost exactly five years ago that I started doing so – I have watched as mainstream media has become shriller and more polemic, trying to match the blogosphere in this respect in a chase for readership. I have seen […]
Brexit: The Uncivil War, reviewed
Last night at 9 PM, as almost all of you will know, Channel 4 broadcast a drama based on the events leading up to the EU referendum in June 2016, written by James Graham and starring Benedict Cumberbatch. I’m going to break this review up into two separate pieces: one, reviewing “The Uncivil War” as […]
Underrated albums and their effect on politics and society, part 5 of 5: “One Foot in the Grave” by Beck
Beck came to fame in 1994 when the video for his song “Loser” went into heavy MTV rotation in America. It is a sort of novelty tune, a kind of slacker white guy hop hop thing that seemed to accidentally capture the spirit of the times with its chorus of “I’m a loser baby, so […]
Underrated albums and their effect on politics and society, part 4 of 5: “The Power of Lard” by Lard
The first thing to say is that this was described upon release as an EP, which should technically disqualify it from this list. However, the record clocks in at almost 44 minutes, which however you arrange the nomenclature, is a long player by any accepted yardstick. So, it qualifies as far as I’m concerned. That’s […]
Underrated albums and their effect on politics and society, part 3 of 5: “Room to Live” by The Fall
At the end of Part 2, I described The Fall as “kind of obscure”, which I can already foresee will annoy several of you. Well, you may have a social circle who know all about Mark E Smith and his miraculous career, but I can guarantee you that the band is not a household name, […]
Underrated albums and their effect on politics and society, part 2 of 5: “Lanquidity” by Sun Ra
Being a bold creative genius who flouts the rules of society to create art that has little to no commercial value for five decades on the trot takes a lot of balls. Even more so if you were a black man in the southern US in the early part of the 20th century. Sun Ra […]
Underrated albums and their effect on politics and society, part 1 of 5: “The Alice Cooper Show”
Happy Christmas, regular readers. Some of you complain when I talk about anything other than Westminster politics; however, the Commons is in a long recess, and furthermore, Brexit has become so f-ing boring as to be something beyond explicating upon, so here goes something else. Over the Christmas season I will be commenting on albums […]