Author Archives: Paul

Just when we all thought nothing could top Liverpool’s unbelievable victory over Barcelona in the Champions’ League semi-final, Tottenham repeated the feat 24 hours later. If anything, their triumph was even more astonishing. With nothing like Liverpool’s European pedigree, they too trailed 3-0 on aggregate but an injury-time leveller against Ajax in Amsterdam made it […]

Along with “absolutely incredible”, they were the words employed to describe Liverpool’s magnificent 4-0 victory over Barcelona last night, overturning a 3-0 deficit from the 1st leg to shoot through to the Champions’ League final. It was an unforgettable night and this anthem was obviously the soundtrack to some of the most joyous and triumphant […]

Someone must, but it’s hard to imagine who. If you grow up in or around Manchester, surely you’d pledge your allegiance to either United or City. At a push, maybe Oldham who have at least played in the Premier League. Or perhaps Bolton whose stint in the top flight was much longer, more recent and […]

Last week Debenhams announced plans to close 22 more stores, though I’m surprised they’re still going at all. Debenhams has somehow survived the advent of shopping malls, retail parks and the Internet but who still goes there? The stores have neither the prestige of Selfridge’s nor the solid reputation of John Lewis but 116 branches […]

….is that, despite being one of the world’s most celebrated athletes, he’s never broken a world record. Not once. Ever. In my head, I’d confused winning Olympic golds in 2012 and 2016 at 5,000 and 10,000 metres with smashing the world records of both. But no, he’s never held a world record in his life […]

No, really. Mustn’t grumble. We’re enjoying the fourth day of the sunniest, warmest Easter holiday on record. So it’s good to pause and reflect on that. It’s all too easy to remember the countless cold, wet, miserable Bank Holidays we’ve all had to endure. So in the interests of balance we need to remember this […]

Is today, Easter Sunday. On the other 51 Sundays, the shops are open. Today, On Muswell Hill Broadway – it was just like 1976. Unusually hot, unusually quiet and every retail outlet closed except for the Asian corner shop. Nothing demonstrates how the UK has changed since my childhood than Sunday. Did it make me […]

All week, Central London has been inconvenienced by climate change “protestors”. I saw them everyday “occupying” Oxford Circus and a less threatening bunch of “revolutionaries” would be hard to imagine. They were solidly middle-class but what was most striking about them was how old they were. Most looked like retired polytechnic lecturers – average age […]

But only a bit. He had a huge hit with this in 1984, and it’s been played on radio stations all over the world ever since. Until a few weeks ago. Following the screening of Finding Neverland and its fairly damning evidence that Michael Jackson was a predatory paedophile, all those radio stations immediately removed […]

I grew up listening to Capital Radio. It was a much freer, more independent alternative to Radio 1. Capital was the soundtrack to growing up in London in the 70s and 80s. Across the UK, there was similar love for independent, individual stations. But gradually, practically all of them fell victim to a huge and […]