Words launch other words, and names have a way of establishing themselves as footholds – nothing could be truer than with the name Jesus, which – thanks to the centuries of teaching, tradition, imposition and imperialism which have used him as currency – has come to mean whatever you earnestly wish. The devil may have […]
An alternative title for this triumphalist rant could be “When Critics Bite Back…”, but the dangers of sounding like a Sky One documentary cross bred with a doughnut addled Rolling Stone sub-editor are for now, enough to keep me satisfied with my primary path of destruction. Sure it’s a pre-occupation as old […]
It’s harder than you might think, choosing seven songs that in one way or another stamped themselves indelibly on your year. Far easier would be a round up of albums (which would certainly include those by lisa hannigan, robert plant & alison krauss, noah and the whale, and elbow), but that’s not, sadly, in my […]
Although I claim to be a holier than thou leftie, there are some conservative impulses I just can’t budge, one of them being a rather straightforward, no-frills list of 7 songs which encapsulate 2008 for me. Yeah, I’m a party pooper, so what? Christmas is for schmucks anyway… So in order… (1) Midnight‘s Another […]
O.k here’s the deal – I’m asked to get seven songs together that rocked my year (why seven? Maybe the editor is on a Madonna Kabalistic tip – who knows?). My clause – these are songs that I’ve played obsessively throughout the year, but they’re not necessarily released this year. Now, with that out of […]
A couple of years ago I heard novelist Ian McEwan talking about his novel Saturday, lamenting the fact that work doesn’t crop up in novels these days. Characters do everything in the modern novel, other than work – or if they do, there’s no particular detail paid to the minutiae of their trade, unless, of […]
