Here's a song I wrote recently for the brilliant Victoria Hart, called 'It's Only Love That Gets Me', receiving its world premiere last weekend. The recorded version can be heard on the Something Happened MySpace page.
Read moreA few days ago, I rang a friend whose recent emails had suggested that he was in low spirits. There had been health problems, a career disappointment. After a couple of minutes of small talk, he asked politely: "To what...
Read moreThe dog was barking. It was an unusual bark - simultaneously excited and frustrated, different in timbre from her usual head-down-a-rabbit-hole bark, or her trying-to-climb-a-tree-after-a-squirrel bark, or her I’m-the-queen-of-the-castle guard-dog bark. I investigated. She was dancing like a demented show-pony...
Read moreAnyone looking for a handy all-purposemetaphor for the mood of Britain in the early 21st century has only to look around them. It will be there in the plastic sandwich-container on a train seat, in the swirl of fast-food wrapping...
Read moreA man who took modesty to pathological extremes, the late Willie Donaldson used to explain why, for several years, he was employed to write a column in this newspaper. Every paper needs a column which no one actually reads, he...
Read moreWhen Norwich was said to be favourite in the race to be the UK’s first City of Culture, I wrote a blog which was not entirely supportive of my local city. “How the heart sinks. As the region’s mighty cohort...
Read moreIn the jolly rough-and-tumble of column-writing, getting few hard kicks from readers is part of the game, but I am beginning to wonder whether something rather odd has been happening in the scrum since the election. My columns in the...
Read moreThe island of Cuba is like a Rorschach test for liberal opinion. For some, it represents hope followed by disappointment, a brave revolution which has hardened into insular authoritarianism, the music of heroic youth giving over time to the drone...
Read moreA record company executive has just achieved an unlikely feat. He has made a man whose career has largely been based upon a bulging crotch and tight trousers seem dignified and wise. Sir Tom Jones is in trouble with his...
Read moreAs a special punishment, Father's Day has this year been extended to Father's Week, and possibly even Father's Month. The wonder of dads is being explored in a special BBC4 season. The nature of fatherhood, and how it has changed...
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