The new Tarantino movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, now previewing at Cannes, excites me. Apparently it is ‘brilliant’ and 5 ****** and all the usual stuff from the critics which generally means f-all once you’re sitting there with your popcorn. But in Tarantino, we believe. The Champions League final excites me greatly. An – Read More-
Just reading an article about poetry and verse And how the words in order to rhyme you must nurse Into shapes and patterns sometimes less than the norm In order that your poetry indeed should take form. It’s not all about rhyming, that’s for sure Rhymes like wot I write are just a little cure – Read More-
I think its time for Gareth Bale to come ‘home’. Back to the club that created him. Ok, he was born in Wales, started as a kid at Southampton but it was at Tottenham that he changed from being a rather unfortunate left-back with a record for never having played in a winning match, to – Read More-
I’ll confess right now: I have never watched a Eurovision anything. I fucking hate Eurovision and always have. When I were a lad it just represented the absolute worst of overly-commercialised plink-plonk Euro-bollox sounds. Whilst England was the absolute pinnacle of good music in the 60s and 70s, way above America even, the rest of – Read More-
My body is confused. I am confused. Because I’m in my third time zone in one week and it is indeed very confusing. On Monday we were in Japan time (GMT + 8), then we came back to British Summer time (Japan time… probably -8) and on Thursday morning we entered Lila Standard Time (GMT – Read More-
I’ve been out of politics for some time now. Nearly 3 weeks. And if 24 hours is lifetime, this period is approaching ‘forever’. Although, alas, in many ways, nothing like long enough. I left the country specifically to give them all time to sort out Brexit, find a reason to get Farage on the plane – Read More-
She wore a brand New Jersey, if you’re interested. It was a song. Decades ago, that ‘cleverly’ used the name of all of America’s 50 states. It was pathetic. But, as a kid, I learned the names of lots of states that I’d never have otherwise known. Which was pretty much all of them except – Read More-
When I’m away I read the Times online. And it takes me about 3.6 minutes. I glance at the sort of things that pass for headlines in the online world, then read the sport. It’s just not how I want/need/like to read a paper. I know, I could go to a news site and see – Read More-
The over-riding message you take from all of Japan is one of food. There are restaurants, cafes, diners, quite literally everywhere. In rows. You never ever find just one, always 17. Most selling the same thing, sometimes they offer variety. In the spaces between the eateries you find food shops. Not just ‘yer basics’ kind’a – Read More-
I was standing on the platform this morning at Odawara station, getting the bullet train back to Tokyo. So this is what you do. You find the platform, it ain’t hard. Then along the platform are the numbers of the actual carriages on the train, once it arrives. So you go to the ‘4’ number – Read More-