Author Archives: Paul

I’ve just finished my first screenplay and I’m searching for parallels between my script and Mario Puzo’s. It’s very Catholic but there the similarity ends. To even think that mine will ever even make it to the screen is wildly optimistic. So I may as well aim stupidly high and dream that it’s as critically […]

But only the good stuff. I have no interest in Cadbury’s or Galaxy. Green & Black’s is the minimum standard and Ameila Rope or Paul A Young if I can get it. I’m not shy about spending good money on good chocolate but even I now think the world’s gone mad. A shop called Mast […]

There have been quite a few shouts lately for Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti which was released 40 years ago this week. But for me, it would have to be the double album that will celebrate that milestone towards the end of next year. The word “genius” is now bandied around far too easily but when […]

Never. I’ve always loathed science fiction, so I was happy to let the Starship Enterprise boldly go on its endless voyage without me. Obviously I knew who Mr. Spock was and Leonard Nimoy, the man who played him, died today aged 83. Despite the universal phenomenon of Star Trek, I remember Leonard Nimoy best for […]

My son is. So is my friend Sara. They never say “No”. They always say “No, no, no”. Now I’ve pointed this out you’ll suddenly notice that a surprising number of your family and friends are triple noers too. Which brings us to the this fabulous version of a famous hit. Dawn Penn, Bounty Killer, […]

There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. I was at school with Loz and still see him now and again. I enjoy his company but – or maybe because – he was always a bit of a handful. Loz came from a a big Irish family, hardly unusual at my school. He had a […]

To the Motoring section of the Exchange & Mart. I just had to see it and, within seconds, I’d be be scouring those classifieds for an automotive gem. Nothing classic – though they would be now – and never more than about £600, I bought all sorts of cars from a Morris Minor to an […]

And rightly so. His portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything was…I was going to say incredible but it was actually the opposite: completely credible. You felt you were watching the professor himself, not an actor pretending. So unlike, say, Michael Caine where you feel you’re watching Michael Caine first and whatever character […]

Or if you’re Chinese, Happy New Year. Apparently, it’s the Year of the Sheep. Or is it the Year the Ram? Or the Year of the Goat? Nobody seems quite sure. So just to enjoy this old 70s classic, let’s declare 2015 the Year of the Cat.

I do love Vanessa Feltz. Highly intelligent, hugely exuberant and boy does she love a party. Some of the most lavish bashes I’ve ever been to have been at her house in St. John’s Wood and I’m going to another one tonight. Vanessa is celebrating her recent induction into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame […]