There will always be an England… tat merchant

So there I was, working behind the counter in the Selfridges, Oxford Street branch of Our Price in the summer of 1990, filing away titles from our large selection of VHS tapes, when a well-to-do middle-aged lady gingerly approached the counter. “I say,” she announced, by way of introduction. “Do you have any Gezza videos?” Being Scottish, and […]

Joachim Loew – Style God

It’s been an odd World Cup. I’ve wanted to write screeds about it but it’s outfoxed me at every level. Through flowing, stinging tears, I typed furiously about the operatic tragedy that was Italy’s early exit but reading it back, I realised that I couldn’t separate my arias from my elbow. I’ll leave that one […]

Things can only get bitter…

The Tories are only back in power a wet minute and look who’s crawled back from the lair of the woodworm. Only Phil Collins. Back, back, back, he is. Considering Britain’s now going back to Victorian values, back to basics, back to colonial, feudalistic, tally-ho, smash-the-oiks Conservatism, why not go the whole hog and bring back old Phil too? I’m […]

Fk right off France? Fk “right-on” Hot Press

It’s hard to fathom who Hot Press thought they’d impress with their “F**K RIGHT OFF FRANCE WORLD CUP PREVIEW”. They try so hard to be seen as the elder, liberal mouthpiece of the nation’s overaged youth, with their regular, preachy articles and editorials on drugs, head shops, sexual liberation, mediocre Irish rock bands and men keeping their hair long until […]

No more excuses, guns are not sport

Another gun massacre in the UK. Hungerford, Dunblane, now Cumbria. The gun lobbyists will argue that’s not a bad figure, and figures certainly back up claims that gun crime in the UK is rare. But this is entirely missing the point. There shouldn’t be any. Michael Ryan, who killed 16 people in Hungerford in 1987, Thomas Hamilton, […]

The Sound of Paint Drying

The other morning, after a night of torrential rain, my first, irritated waking thought was, “Well, if it’s going to piss down, and I have to go out in that, I just hope there are hundreds of fat, boring businessmen meeting on golf courses today.” I’ve never been glad to see the back of summer but […]

The End, Part 666

We’re way, way more doomed than we thought before the weekend. We moan and whinge about potholes in this country but imagine waking up to find that the actual entrance to hell has opened up in your back garden? They certainly woke up to that ‘reality’ in Guatemala City the other morning. In yet another piece […]