Category Archives: Worlds Shortest Radio Show

We all have our “favourites” for this dubious honour and this is certainly one of mine. Novelty records like Mr.Blobby don’t count, neither does stuff like Napalm Death which is deliberately and self-consciously extreme. No, it has to be something that’s reasonably popular but that you personally detest. I despise this record. Banal, repetitive, musically […]

….was Lynsey de Paul – petite, beautiful and immensely talented. So I was saddened today to hear of her sudden death. When she sang this on Top of the Pops, I remember thinking “Blimey, I’d dance with you”. Though I’m not sure a frizzy-haired kid, still at primary school, was the “somebody’ she had in […]

Cheesy, over-matey, artificial and smug, Neil Fox embodied all that’s wrong with commercial radio in this country. He called himself “Doctor” Fox. On his Twitter account he describes himself as “Media bloke, telly fella and bike rider”. The bike is, of course, a Harley. Whenever I saw this short, stout, middle-aged “fella” riding around the […]

Because if you do, you’ll play it to death and risk killing your love for it in the process. There may be some truth in this but no real music fan would ever be able to show such self-restraint. Except maybe by accident. I bought this single in Dub Vendor in Ladbroke Grove, played it […]

And he’s 79 today. Happy Birthday to Jerry Lee Lewis whose music still sounds as wild and exciting as it must have done in 1958. By this time, he was already on the third of his seven marriages. Wife No.3 was his 13-year old cousin and when the couple arrived in Britain that year, the […]

I used to go all the time because they had the “One in Front” policy. If there was more than one person in front of you at the check out, they’d open another one. It was genius. The food and prices at all the big supermarkets were pretty much the same, but customers always preferred […]

After never wanting to hear another Scottish accent as long as I live, I think I can just about cope with hearing one again.

Though I did think that Ian Paisley, who died yesterday, was already dead. His huge, thundering presence was such a big part of British life that I assumed his more recent silence meant he was no longer with us. It’s impossible to overstate how famous, or infamous, he was in the 70s and 80s. Think […]

So he took me along last night. It was the Hen & Chickens in Islington, a tiny venue holding no more than sixty people. The world’s most “inappropriate” comic was uncomfortably close so it was the only time I’ve seen the back seats taken first and the front row last. Frankie was trying out new […]

Great film based on the true story of London’s gay and lesbian community raising money for striking miners and forging a unlikely alliance. I remember all that very well, particularly the brilliant “Pits & Perverts” fundraising gig at the Electric Ballroom. It’s a funny, moving and faithful depiction of a very different era when people […]