Author Archives: Paul

…was yesterday and I very nearly spent my life celebrating it as a naturalised Australian. When I was about three, my mum, dad and assorted aunts, uncles and cousins were all set to emigrate en masse from NW2 to NSW. My mum was always cagey about why we didn’t go but I’d guess it was […]

Mark E Smith died yesterday. He was the founder and only constant member of The Fall. Since forming the band in 1979, he sacked about about sixty members, which is why The Fall were once described as “Mark and whoever he hasn’t fallen out with”. Famously difficult, he never compromised about anything. He genuinely didn’t […]

The last ten years have seen the unstoppable rise of the “man hug”. It has quickly usurped the brisk handshake, yet I distinctly remember the man-to-man embrace being strictly the preserve of the criminal fraternity. When I was DJ-ing back in the 80s, most of the London clubs where I worked were owned by gangsters […]

Black armbands and a minute’s applause at all Premier League grounds this weekend to honour the great Cyrille Regis, who died this week, aged just 59. Cyrille was plucked from obscurity in 1977 and suddenly found himself, alongside Laurie Cunningham and Brendan Batson at West Brom. Affectionately nicknamed The Three Degrees, they were three of […]

I have a soft spot for songs that tell a complete story in around three minutes: A Boy Named Sue, Harper Valley PTA, Leader of the Pack, In The Ghetto and Stan are particularly good examples. However, with The Gambler, Coward of the County and of course, Lucille, Kenny Rogers is probably king of the […]

To St.Joseph’s Church in Wealdstone. My friend Pat Callanan died just before Christmas and I was there for the old Irish tradition of receiving the body into the church on the night before the funeral. St. Joe’s is right next to my old school and it felt odd to return to everything I’d left behind. […]

Last year David Hepworth wrote and presented “It’s All About The Drummer, Stupid” a brilliant episode of The Essay on Radio 3. In it, he contended that Ringo Starr – often dismissed as the least talented Beatle – was always scandalously underrated. According to David – and indeed to producer George Martin – The Beatles […]

Barry Gibb deserved to be knighted. And finally, in the New Year’ Honours List, he has been. The Bee Gees had a string of hits in the late 60s but by 1975, their career seemed to be over. They were trying one last time with a new album. As they drove to the studio each […]

Congratulations to Angela Rayner, Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, who became a grandmother yesterday at the age of just 37. At long last, a genuinely working class Labour MP rather than the privileged, out of touch impostors like Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry, who have no experience of the issues poorer people face every single day. […]

RIP David Cassidy who died yesterday, aged 67. I don’t think any solo performer ever caused more teenage hysteria than he did. Thousands of girls besieged Heathrow Airport when he first arrived here in 1972. And thousands more ran screaming after him wherever he went. Many years later, he came to London to star in […]