Author Archives: Paul

But more troublingly, my son is too. It was his birthday yesterday and he’s now twenty. It makes me feel very old to have a son in his twenties, but very proud to have this particular son. Apart from supporting Arsenal rather than QPR, he is everything I could wish for. Clean, cool and smart, […]

Well, that’s not strictly true. We need a few other things too but the more love we can feel and convey in 2015, the better it’s going to be. There are thousands of songs about love and this is one of the best. There are also thousands of definitions of love but this – “Recognising […]

Don’t worry, he hasn’t died. He was alive and well yesterday when I saw him at a lunch at the Savoy at which he was inducted in the Radio Academy’s Hall of Fame. Barry Cryer is famously funny, famously nice and yesterday was the first time I’d ever met him. I told him that I’d […]

But that was when Chelsea had some of the most fearsome fans in the country. They’d stand staunch in the decrepit old terracing known as The Shed and this was their theme tune – its four-beat hook stomped out by the terrifying clatter of a thousand steel-capped boots. I was at Stamford Bridge last night […]

Happy Birthday to Woody Allen, 79 yesterday. And he really is a genius. I’m a huge fan of almost everything he’s done from his 1960s stand-up to most of his films. I love his dialogue, his characters and, in particular, his shrewd use of music. This track, which accompanied the opening titles of Manhattan, is […]

…was this one. The Who at the Kilburn State. The gig was being filmed for a documentary called “The Kids Are Alright”. It was supposed to be a secret but everyone round our way knew about it and a kind hearted doorman let us all in for nothing. It remains, to this day, the best […]

…..can only mean one thing: Black Friday. Big stores open their doors at midnight and offer huge discounts on electrical goods for one day only. Thousands swarm in and have pitched battles in the aisles, trying to grab a bargain. It’s a horrible pre-Christmas tradition imported from America where even fatter people will be fighting […]

Given that he spent half of his 90 years in jail, RIP could well have meant Rest In Prison. I interviewed him once and despite the fact that he was very small, polite, softly spoken and well into his seventies, he still carried an aura of quiet menace. He said he’d never been frightened of […]

And that makes me sad. Not so much for the demise of this legendary nightspot but for what it represents: Soho at its most gloriously seamy. Its transvestite cabaret nights are still (though seemingly not for much longer) a rare relic of old Soho. A place where dark alleys would lead you to secret little […]

It was my friend Paul Howarth who pointed this out. Until fairly recently, a curator could only be found in a museum. Now instead of choosing things, people “curate” them. Everything from a mix tape to a shopping list is “curated”. When I met someone yesterday at a new-ish coffee shop near Oxford Circus, I […]