Author Archives: Paul

It used to be known as The Sonys – the radio industry’s equivalent of the Oscars – and it’s an absolute celebfest. Last night for example, I met Chris Evans, Roger Daltrey, Alfie Boe, Graham Norton, Frank Skinner and Boris Johnson. And that was almost without leaving my table. Had I been an oily networker, […]

But I have an excuse. My daughter’s school were finalists in School Choir of the Year and…… they won. They were fantastic and we were all very proud. Having never watched this dreadful programme before, I recognised the chubby smiling, artificially earnest host. It was David Grant, once one half of Linx who brought us […]

Ray Davies was born and bred in Muswell Hill. He still lives in the area. I do too and can understand why this quirky part of town is so special to him. Unlike The Beatles or The Stones whose early influences came from across the Atlantic, Ray Davies wrote truly original songs – influenced by […]

………………he should turn his Eurosceptic ire on the Eurovision Song Contest. Campaigning for its abolition would net him thousands of votes. Some might say it’s so bad, it’s good. But it’s actually so bad, it’s bad. And nowadays, tarnished still further by certain countries ganging up and voting against countries they don’t like. And yet […]

A memoir entitled “Rock Stars Stole My Life”. Mark is one of the greatest music journalists this country has ever produced and one of the nicest blokes you could ever wish to meet. Given his astonishing CV: Record Mirror, the NME, editor of Smash Hits, Q and The Word; presenter of the Old Grey Whistle […]

It’s because “My fair” is how Eliza Doolitle, with her cockney accent, would have pronounced “Mayfair”. So now you know. And this song is, of course, from My Fair Lady. Last night, I went to see something very different: “A View from a Bridge” at the Young Vic. So what connects this tune to that […]

I was going to say “King of the Jingles” but Jimmy Helms was far more than that. A fantastic American singer who settled in the UK, Jimmy was every bit as good as his more famous Motown and Atlantic contemporaries. If you’ve worked in advertising in the last 40 years and were making a commercial […]

….in less than six months. Let’s salute the astounding success of Crystal Palace manager Tony Pulis. When he took over, Palace were bottom of the Premier League with practically no hope of avoiding relegation. And yet Pulis instilled discipline and organisation into a ragtag bunch of players which made them pull together and hoist themselves […]

So that’s all right then. If the weather’s good, Bank Holidays are wonderful. If it’s not, then they can seem pointless and rather depressing – harking back to a time when we worked in fields and factories and were all forced to take our holidays at the same time. Those factories would shut down for […]

I’ve been to America many times but mainly to either the East or West coast. Yesterday, though, I was transfixed by feature in one of the Saturday travel supplements entitled The United States of Adventure. Now suddenly I want to visit every one. I’m gazing at it now, feeling like the wide-eyed child I once […]