Author Archives: Paul

Great show last night at the Soho Theatre in which, with world-weary wit, Arthur really does sing the songs of Leonard Cohen. Arthur Smith is the great survivor of the 1980s alternative comedy scene. He may not have achieved the fame nor amassed the fortunes of his arena sell-out contemporaries, but his renown is of […]

About DIY and home improvements. I don’t want to live in a slum but I’d much be happier in a hotel, a pre-Thatcher London council house or a rented apartment in Berlin with a bicycle secured to the balcony. However, since the UK is a country obsessed with owning and improving property, and you have […]

By which I mean Islington – London, N1. But those native to the area always call it “The Angel”. A couple of miles up the road, locals still refer to Arsenal tube station as “Gillespie Road”. And these little quirks aren’t confined to North London. People from Greenwich refer to their neighbourhood as “Grinnidge” while […]

Musically, that is. Growing up, I was obsessed with music and spent all my spare cash in record shops. But in my life, as in most people’s, that obsession gets eased out by work, mortgages, children and, well, life. So almost unconsciously, we tend to switch off the sharp antenna that always picked up new […]

My friend Steve Williams lives in New York and recently drew my attention to UK words and phrases that mean nothing in the US. Things like “Skint”, “Knackered” and “Bob’s Your Uncle”. However, this is probably the best example of Britain and America attaching very different meanings to exactly the same word. Great old sixties […]

No they don’t. And here’s the proof. This grizzled old hippy is Paul Rodgers, one of the greatest rock vocalists this country has ever produced. Front man of Free and then Bad Company but incredibly, in this clip, he was just 20. It’s not just the beard that makes him seem so much older, it’s […]

……this is true – and she says, “Can I just say, you’ve got a really good look”. Note the careful choice of words. “You’ve got a good look” – very different from “You’re good looking”. I was looking particularly unkempt. Battered leather jacket from a charity shop, torn jeans and a pair of very old […]

James Blunt has recently been transformed into a cool, cult hero because of his brilliant ripostes to vicious Internet trolls. My favourite was to a tweet that said “I wish James Blunt was dead”. “I was”, our hero replied, “But on the third day, you’ll never guess what happened”. But there was always something of […]

God, I do. Round our way, we all knew Hi-Tension. They were local boys – the drummer went out with my mate’s sister. So when they appeared on Top of the Pops, we were all very proud in a “Well, who’d have thought it?” sort of way. Years later, I realised just how influential they […]

…..is that they grow up. My friend Micky Treasure and I were bemoaning this only the other night. We agreed that one life’s greatest joys is dancing with your daughter when she’s tiny. And one of its great sadnesses is they don’t stay tiny for long. When my daughter was a toddler, I’d get out […]