“Alphabetical” is a weekday afternoon quiz show, another one we have added to the “series record” list on our multi-channel box. It sits alongside “The Chase”, “Pointless”, “Countdown”, “University Challenge”, “Mastermind” and “Only Connect”. Combined with episodes of “Have I Got News for You”, “Strictly Come Dancing” and “Upstart Crow”, and over 100 “Top of… Continue reading Word of the week: alphabetical
At any point in the last 40 years I could have written you a thousand words about the biggest rock beasts of them all, the great Led Zeppelin, a band that have never been far away from my metaphorical and actual turntables since 1975. I could give you 10,000 words without too much difficulty right… Continue reading Led Zeppelin
Last weekend, at 1.35am on Sunday, BBC2 screened the little-known 1979 movie “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”. I say “little-known” but at least 20 people know about it thanks to my efforts over the years. It was filmed all around the part of West London where I, and many of my friends, grew up,… Continue reading “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”
As their website notes, “parkrun organise free, weekly, 5km timed runs around the world. They are open to everyone, free, and are safe and easy to take part in”. This month they celebrate their 13th birthday. Since July my daughter and I have been attending local parkruns, both the 5km runs on a Saturday and… Continue reading Word of the week: parkrun
Back in May I wrote about taking my son to town on a Saturday to buy the latest Blondie album the day after its release (“Album shopping on a Saturday afternoon”). Yesterday I went a step further, taking my daughter to town after school so that we could buy the new Liam Gallagher album “As… Continue reading Album shopping on a Friday afternoon
Earlier this week while driving down the A40 to collect my son from school, through the tunnel under the Hanger Lane Gyratory and past the Hoover Factory, I spent five minutes or more behind a Portuguese truck. It had a sign on the back that read “Veiculo Longo”. It’s a phrase I have seen before,… Continue reading Veiculo Longo
It looks like I’m not the only person who has been thinking of the word fatberg in recent weeks. A week after I posted this Word of the Week piece about it Naomi Klein used the word to describe Donald Trump in her speech to the Labour Party Conference. As quoted in this piece on… Continue reading More about fatbergs
Rest in peace Tom Petty, another singer and songwriter taken from us too soon. His first UK hit “Anything that’s rock ’n roll” in 1977 was the first 12” single that I ever bought and I was privileged to see him at the Marquee Club in London a year later, a semi-secret gig for which… Continue reading Tom Petty RIP
Today would have been Marc Bolan’s 70th birthday. As you probably know, he died 40 years ago this month, in the early hours of 16 September 1977. His girlfriend Gloria Jones was driving them back to East Sheen from central London, lost control of the car near Barnes Common and the subsequent crash killed him… Continue reading Marc Bolan, 40 years on
Last weekend I wrote about browsing through my old pocket diaries and mentioned a TV commercial (for Bird’s Eye Supermousse) that my brother and I appeared in back in the 1970s. Over the years I have attempted to find the commercial online, without success. We only saw it a handful of times when it was… Continue reading A 1970s TV commercial featuring me and my brother
The Compartments 