Feb
20
The Wave Pictures
February 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The following review appears in the latest edition of London’s premier music ‘zine, London Tour Dates. The Wave Pictures, The Enterprise, 19th Feb 2008 It’s great to see a whammy bar these days. You don’t have to be a guitar geek to appreciate a nice bit of trebly whanging, especially if done with the restraint […]
Feb
1
English language through Iraqi eyes
February 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Fans of the English language check out this from an Iraqi blogger . . . very insightful: If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?
Jan
30
Lucky Lugovoi?
January 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
It’s hard not to have some liking for Andrei Lugovoi. The affable — and unflappable – ex KGB agent cuts quite a figure with his perma-tan and pistol-toting antics the news networks so love to repeat. Add to this a bored insouciance – often approaching but just stopping short of belligerence — concerning the poisoning […]
Jan
26
The danse macabre of a stuck record
January 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I like reading John Pilger. There’s no denying he’s a big name columnist and when he appeared on World Have Your Say last year it was a big thrill. When the New Statesman comes round every week I always check to see if the Pilge is in there and turn to his column. You don’t […]
Jan
24
Cabbie wisdom
January 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I was getting a cab home early one morning and my African driver was talking about the global stock slump, I asked him if Africans would be affected by the billion-dollar losses felt by the likes of Merril Lynch. His response was immediate: “When you’re not dining, you don’t care if the table is overturned.” […]
Jan
19
Accentuate the positive
January 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The World Service has a slightly stuffy reputation for being the last bastion of the traditional cut-glass BBC presenter voice of old. There do exist those voices on air and personally I luv ’em and a lot of listeners depend on them and associate them with a sense of authority, although if you listen a […]
Jan
16
Format wars
January 16, 2008 | 1 Comment
As the big studios and their behemoth partners in Hollywood battle it out to see who triumphs between Blu-ray and HD DVD it’s worth remembering some of the brutal consequences of the BETAMAX v VHS war of the 70s.
Jan
13
More Musical Misery
January 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment
 . . . for the big labels that is. Hat Tip to Mark Steyn for this excellent Economist article. Here’s the headshot: IN 2006 EMI, the world’s fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the […]