Author Archives: Paul

It’s gathering pace and it’s not just a retro thing. There are solid, sonic reasons for its revival, as there were for its demise. Vinyl always offered a richer, warmer sound than CD but only good quality vinyl. If you’ve got any old albums from the 60s, you’ll know that the vinyl was thicker and […]

Coffee Circus in Crouch End is one of my favourite coffee shops. But it also seems to be the favourite haunt of half the teachers in Haringey and Islington. I was in “The Staff Room” yesterday and four of them – one wearing open-toed Birkenstocks – were loudly denouncing Michael Gove and the hated Tories. […]

For my wife, no TV show is complete without a panel of judges. I seldom watch these programmes, so I’ve only just discovered that Boy George has replaced Tom Jones on The Voice. Much better. Tom was always so handsome, such a huge star with such an amazing voice that he never developed much of […]

Huge, lumbering and largely empty, buses are the bane of many Londoners’ lives. I know, I know – it’s “wrong” to criticise such a wealth of public transport but you could sometimes walk from Marble Arch to Oxford Circus on the roofs of stationary buses. Now it’s been confirmed that a London bus moves more […]

I don’t want to tempt fate but Desmond Carrington will be 90 this year and still hosts “The Music Goes Round” every Friday on Radio 2. He can’t go on forever but the show is hugely popular and not just with the elderly. It has a sizeable cult following among those not yet carrying a […]

Well, obviously not John Lennon. I found myself at the Brixton Academy for the NME Awards watching a bunch of bands I’d never heard of collecting gongs for music I’d never heard. But I had heard of the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award – ladies and gentlemen, Yoko Ono. And up she tottered, tiny […]

Odd title. Ski-ing in the snow? As opposed to where? It’s also an odd title for a Northern Soul anthem. Hard to imagine two more disparate activities than Northern Soul and ski-ing. But the Alps is where everyone seems to go during February half term. I went loads of times but,if I’m honest, I never […]

Traditionally the most romantic day of the year. Though a marriage guidance counsellor once told me that the biggest problem she encounters between couples is – wait for it – unromantic women. Howl and object as much as you like, that’s what she said. And Valentine’s Day is a prime example. While there’s pressure on […]

Filming is apparently due to start on a biopic of Barry Sheene. I suppose the success of Rush, about James Hunt, meant that a similar film about Sheene was inevitable. They both won their first world titles in 1976, but Sheene was by far the bigger star. Every schoolboy of my vintage wanted to be […]

Wonderful documentary on Channel 4 last night called Britain’s Weirdest Council Houses featuring some properly eccentric, creative oddballs who’ve turned their humble abodes into something quite extraordinary. It reminded me how much I miss the council estate glamour of my childhood. The neat streets of bricks and mortar – as opposed to the grim forbidding […]