Jeremys #3: Hardy

Third in a series of short tributes to well-known people called Jeremy I’m always astonished when people tell me they’ve never heard of Jeremy Hardy. It’s hard to imagine life without his input. I first came across this charming and astonishingly funny man during my lengthy stint as a regular Guardian reader in the 1990s. Aside from […]

These are Grave times…

It is that time of year. The air has turned chill and crisp, the leaves brown, orange and scarlet. The time of overcoats, scarves, gloves and mystery, when I feel the overwhelming impulse to listen to the very bleakest Scott Walker and read ghost stories. It’s also the time when I feel like spend chilly afternoons wandering around cemeteries. […]

In search of patience

Patience. It’s a beautiful word. To me, it represents more of an aspiration than something that comes naturally. But I’m learning. When I was 15, a school friend flicked through my drawing pad, admiring my freehand, felt-pen copies of album cover (chiefly The Smiths) artwork and told me that I “must have the patience of a saint” to copy […]

Why is a taxi driver’s time more precious than anyone else’s?

First, a disclaimer: I know that not all Dublin taxi drivers have over-bitten, vinegar-soaked fingernails, nor do they all wear chafing hessian underpants – in other words, they’re not universally irritable, intolerant, impatient, racist, shoulder-chipped prole chauffeurs. I also understand that, as self-employed people, time generally equals money in their line of business. And I […]

Roger? I still would…

Sir Roger Moore turned 83 today. They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes but I always hold out a little hope I’ll meet him one day. He was my first pin-up hero, the first ‘person I wanted to be’. I’m not sure who bought me the giant Roger Moore poster on my wall when I […]

He. Is. Not. Appreciated.

Great Fall line-up: Mark E. Smith, Brix E. Smith, Craig Scanlon, Steve Hanley, Simon Wolstencroft, Marcia Schofield. Brilliant opening track to a brilliant album. Introduced by Tony Wilson.

Time to call in pest control

I’m sure Irish News Of The World readers are a discerning bunch but surely even the most apathetic of them have their limits. The new ad for the paper is little short of astonishing, even in a country which has experienced its fair share of shocks lately. ‘Typical’ rheumy-eyed NOTW readers open their fridge and […]

Bona, darling

Moz reissue isn’t such a Drag Some might say: “Oh, not another Morrissey reissue.” And they would have a point. This past decade has seen a ridiculous quantity of Moz re-releases, not all of them good quality, ensuring that one of the most loyal fanbases in popular music forks out time and again for material […]