The digital revolution, Ray Winstone and the Ladbrokes Life have ruined gambling. It’s time to fight back… Until fairly recently, debates about The Golden Age of Pop Music have been about whether it ended in the 60s or 70s or 80s or 90s. But as I argued here, it is absurd ... Read More...
Did you catch a glimpse of a truly horrible painting in the BBC's And Then There Were None?... I thought the BBC’s adaptation of And Then There Were None, shown over Christmas, was excellent – it successfully brought to the screen the sick imagination of its author. The mind of Agatha ... Read More...
Happy New Year! Here's how not to be happy... It may only be the start of January but it's unlikely that 2016 will see a more remarkable 'what I've learnt' self-interview piece than this one from the hypnotist Paul McKenna in The Guardian. Selected highlights: I wish I could be zen and say ... Read More...
It's the last Dabbler Diary of 2015, and Brit has been to EuroDisney!... For me, Mickey Mouse is a strangely unempathetic character. His blank grin offers no cheer, his squeaky utterances are pitched at a frequency I cannot receive. Goofy I like. Also Donald Duck, though I wouldn’t want to be stuck ... Read More...
This video is an hour long, but I can assure you that it flies by, because Nick Cohen speaks like a man whose hour has come. Watch it if you want to understand the perverse dynamics of current Western politics. I have to admit that a few years ago I was ... Read More...
They don't make kids' cartoons like this any more... While researching a piece on meanings and adaptations of well-known fairytales, I found this 1943 MGM cartoon directed by Tex Avery, the existence of which has lurked in the back of my mind for a while, even though my conscious mind could ... Read More...
What is a melody, and why are good ones so hard to write?... In The Guardian Clive James writes: It could be said that Adele is Mama Cass born again, but she needs a song to match her voice. I have listened several times to her smash hit, Hello. I was hoping that the shapely beauty ... Read More...
The past few weeks and months I've been up and down and over and out. I've been used, abused and frequently confused. I've also been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king. It is for those reasons that in lieu of a proper diary ... Read More...
I’m always amazed that some people are content to live in places other than Bristol. Eejits. My dear friend Martin, for instance, has to come all the way from Cardiff (a poor imitation of Bristol with added delusions of Welsh grandeur, of all things) to get a decent night out ... Read More...
My favourite Australian - the competition is not stiff - is Michael ‘Maxy’ Klinger. Michael Klinger is a softly-spoken, slender, crooked man with austerely cropped grey hair and the permanent wrinkled grin that pale-skinned Antipodeans have evolved to cope with the sun. He makes a living by carefully, repetitively striking ... Read More...