Author Archives: Paul

And it was about this time of the year. I’d seldom ventured beyond the North Circular so this was as far as I’d ever been from everything I’d ever known. And it was fantastic. One night we stayed in a remote settlement near the Burmese border with an indigenous tribe called the Karens. The Karens?? […]

As a DJ not as a punter but the gay crowds were always my favourites. Stylish, generous and appreciative, they danced all night and never got nasty or aggressive, so back in the 80s I used to host a gay night once a month at a little underground club in the West End. I’d go […]

Maybe because it’s acapella, it’s sort of choral – almost like a carol. And of course, because it was the Christmas No.1 of 1983. The Flying Pickets were well-known for their radical left-wing leanings – I suppose the name was a bit of a clue – and for their vocal (sic) support of the Miners’ […]

……slowly, subtly, nothing too full-on but a sprinkling of Christmas tunes throughout the month is a very good thing. My friend Nicole will have been waiting for at least two weeks for the rest of us to catch up. For her, every day is the season of goodwill but Christmas is when really she comes […]

It was the fastest-selling single ever and the first to sell more than two million copies, making it best-selling single of all time. It’s still the fourth. Only Elton John’s Diana version of Candle in the Wind, Band Aid and Bohemian Rhapsody, given a second wind following the death of Freddie Mercury, have outsold it. […]

…..I was just wondering if you were free to DJ at our Christmas party”. Her crisp, Sloaney tones suggested that this would be a very posh do. But the fact that it was at their factory in Harlesden suggested that it might be wise to fill my boxes with reggae. The party-goers, many from the […]

…..and apparently it won’t happen again for another 25,000 years. But today in America, Thanksgiving has fallen on the same day as the Jewish feast of Hanukkah. So let’s celebrate with a 60s novelty hit that’s both typically Jewish and very American. I am neither Jewish nor American but have a great love of both […]

But my friend Vanessa, whose daughter is pregnant, tells me she wants to be a GILF. In the papers this weekend, we learned that Mick Jagger’s daughter Jade is, like Vanessa, expecting her first grandchild. And that raises a rather grisly question: Does Sir Michael now have ambitions to be the world’s first GGILF? Oh […]

That’s neither a name nor an age you’d associate with Tina Turner but tempus fugit. She became a zillion-selling solo superstar in the 1980s but I think she did her best work with the despicable Ike. His history as a drug-abusing wife-beater is well-known. In fact one of the best TV lines ever was in […]

….but he didn’t have a shop or a studio. I doubt he even owned a camera. Whenever I called to take his daughter out, his firm handshake and vague aura of menace suggested a somewhat shadier occupation. They were a lovely family and I seemed to be the only one who had any suspicions about […]