Author Archives: Paul

I have a stock answer to this. “No”, I reply in mock-surprise, “I quite like women”. This light-hearted response seems to have acquired a more than a grain of truth this week with the decision of Muirfield Golf Club not to admit women members. Or ‘lady golfers’ as they apparently call them. I don’t play […]

The main reason is that I have absolutely no musical talent. The other reason was my school. I thought this when I saw Sing Street, a new film about five Irish schoolboys forming a band in the 1980s. Although their school was in Dublin and mine was in London, they were practically identical. All boys, […]

The supreme court has extended the interim privacy injunction preventing identification of a world-famous celebrity allegedly involved in a three-way sexual encounter. The man and his spouse, who have young children, can only be named as PJS and YMA. Who is this world-famous celebrity? Who knows? Who cares? Instead, let’s celebrate a great album that […]

My wife used to be her agent and says that she was either absolutely lovely or absolutely vile. I was reminded of Saucy Babs last night when she bowed out of EastEnders for the very last time. I’ve worked with her many times and have only ever seen the lovely side. At 78, she’s one […]

In the history of popular music. It was the fiftieth anniversary of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, two of the most celebrated albums ever recorded, and both released on 16th May 1966. There was commemorative documentary on Radio 4 which unwittingly illustrated the gulf between the two. Pet Sounds […]

Max Veerstapen won the Spanish Grand Prix yesterday. He’s 18. Eighteen?? Yes, he may have only won because Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg had a spectacular crash but he’s a Grand Prix-winning Formula 1 driver at 18. Surely he hasn’t been alive long enough to have learned to drive that well. It is an astonishing […]

If you like this blog but yearn for something more edifying than its daily diet of silly songs and self-regarding stories, may I recommend onetonyharris.com. Tony Harris is one of my oldest friends and his musical knowledge is second to none. Now domiciled in the Far East, he returns whenever he can and it was […]

“You can be homesick for a place even when you’re there”. That’s how I felt last night when I visited St. Joseph’s Social Club in Wembley for the very last time. It was once the thriving hub of a huge Irish community and was run by my mate Frank Waites’s dad. Even though we weren’t […]

For my great friend Mairead Carty’s 50th birthday party. She’s a wonderful actress and voice artist whose sublime tones have made commercials I’ve written sound far better than they had any right to sound. With her rosy Irish cheeks and hair as black as Guinness, it’s hard to believe she’s 40, let alone 50. The […]

Johnny Field. My first boss and one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. A gentle, kind and witty East Ender, John always had great stories but was so modest and unassuming, you almost had to prise them out of him. One was that he lost his virginity to Lulu and another was that he’d […]