Category Archives: Worlds Shortest Radio Show

Most of them ridden by people who don’t normally cycle. And that’s possibly the worst thing about a tube strike. Commuters who usually take the tube decide to get out the bike, the helmet and the unnecessary amount of hi-viz apparel to wobble slowly, nervously and perilously through heavy traffic. Cycling in London requires a […]

Don’t panic. You won’t have to wear a bikini and dance on a raised platform at a 1960s discotheque. I’m talking about this sort of Go-Go, a much underrated sub-genre of da funk. Overshadowed by soul, hip-hop, house and practically every other sort of urban dance music, this groove that came out of Washington in […]

For a long time I just thought it was anything that rhymed but have since discovered otherwise. Can there be real poetry in pop songs? Of course there can. You don’t have to look too hard to find words to rival those of Keats, Shelley or Donne. Think about the most poetic pop songs ever […]

…fill it with bleach and squirt the bleach on your back tyres. Then rev the engine, drop the clutch and pull fantastically smokin’ wheelspins. It’s the last Saturday of the month which always meant a trip to the Chelsea Bridge Cruise where proud owners would parade their beautiful 1950s American and customised cars. Wannabes like […]

He’s been travelling in South East Asia for five weeks. I’ve really missed him so I’m feeling very sentimental this morning. Though I do wonder just how sentimental I’ll be feeling once he’s been back for a few days.

…has just been served at Trattoria Luca in Camden Town and I made sure I went along one final time before Paolo Boggi closed the doors forever. It was a once-typical, old fashioned family-run Italian trattoria where the family actually lived upstairs. Practically unchanged since the 70s, it was first place I was ever taken […]

We’ve never been big on celebrating our national identity. We regard it as slightly vulgar and I love that. We’re not “proud” of being English. How can we be? Nationality is a mere foible of fate for which we can take neither credit nor blame. So saying “I’m English and proud of it” is a […]

….then at 0.07, we get the lead. And at 0.18, they’re joined by the bass and drums to complete the classic Quo sound. It’s often derided but I love that three-chord simplicity. Along with Rossi and Parfitt, the sound itself has become a national treasure. I’ve picked this example because it first helped me understand […]

First bank holiday of the year so would you have travelled by motorbike or scooter to the seaside for a tear-up with the opposing tribe? Having had several Vespas, my answer would have to be Mod. There was a Mod revival when I was at school which meant parkas over blazers, ties pulled skinny and […]

I don’t believe it! No, really – I don’t believe it. But Happy Easter anyway.