I remember an article that ran in the NME during the late 1990s entitled “Is football the new rock and roll?” No one is calling football the new rock and roll these days, or indeed the new anything, nor is anyone describing anything at all as the new rock and roll. Footballers are a robotic […]
Channel 4’s “Coalition” – a review
I recall when I first heard about this programme being commissioned. In fact, I wrote an article on this very site about it. Having now watched it, my view on that hasn’t really been significantly altered – it was a bad idea. This was reflected in the quality of the final piece, which wasn’t very […]
The five “most punk” punk rock songs of all time
When I was a teenager, I was affected by punk music for a distinct period of time. Up until I discovered it, I was very much a little metalhead – both the music itself and the politics of punk changed my life. Although I’m not the little anarchist I was at fifteen any longer, the […]
The Blonde Obstacle
It was amazing how much my quest had turned into a real life version of “Code of the Clan”. In the final ten minutes of the movie, Ling has to leave China to go into India for his final confrontation (just as I was about to leave Germany for Belgium). In India, he was to […]
The five Stonesyest Rolling Stones songs
History lesson for all of the youngsters who have wandered over: the Rolling Stones were (or rather, are, excuse me) a rock n roll outfit who formed in London in 1962. Amazingly, they appear to still be together, at least from a legal entity perspective if little else. At their best, the fusion of Mick […]
The Penguins of Madagascar – a review
I saw this in the cinema when it came out – with my daughter, obviously. I should mention that the only time I go to the cinema these days is to watch kids movies for obvious, parent with young children reasons. So I’m pretty picky about them now. Anyway, I’m using the DVD release of […]
The five greatest hip hop acts of the 20th century
Hip hop was invented sometime around 1975 by a DJ in the South Bronx who called himself Kool Herc. His idea, like all brilliant ones, was essentially simple. He played mostly funk tunes at his gigs, and he noted that the bit of every song people seemed to like the most was the drum breaks. […]
The five most unintentionally funny movies of all time
I’ve described previously what I think are the five worst films ever made. After I did so, I got tweets and emails asking me things like, “What about ‘The Room’? That’s terrible.” I had to write back saying something along the lines of, “Yes, ‘The Room’ is terrible. But it’s brilliantly, enjoyably terrible. Unlike ‘Revenge […]
A Bottle of La Romanee Conti and an American prat
I found Tony’s but not without effort. It was one of those annoying shitholes only found seeing out their commorancies in the cellars of Mayfair, the kind of pretentious dive that thinks because it’s hard to find it must be a brilliant provider of the dining experience. Tony’s is the type of establishment that doesn’t […]
The five worst movies ever made
Having detailed what I felt were the five worst songs ever recorded, I felt it was beholden on me to weigh in on the five worst pieces of cinema ever unleashed. I’ve sat through a lot of bad films in my life, both intentionally and unintentionally. In other words, there are lots of movies I’ve […]