Freelance Writer: comedy and pop culture2024-09-21T23:35:52+01:00

Freelance writer specializing in comedy and the geekier end of the pop culture spectrum.

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Sesame: Life on the Street

This evening’s Archive Hour on Radio 4 celebrated the 40th anniversary of the seminal children’s TV show Sesame Street. The programme featured healthy dollops of insight about the visionary goals that underpinned the show and how the Children’s Television Workshop revolutionised children’s TV through the medium of animation, bad puns and felt glove puppets. The one thing that wasn’t discussed, however, was an aspect of the show that most media pundits are either blissfully unaware of or would prefer just to ignore. I’m talking, of course, about the way in which the seemingly benign and wholesome inner city world of [...]

Armando Iannucci’s Questions for Mr Tony Blair (Updated)

Updated 30th January 2010: this may seem a bit overdue, but I've now added Armando Iannucci's 9th and 10th questions that were Tweeted after I wrote my original post. In light of how yesterday's events played out, it now seems as though my additional question for readers was a wee bit optimistic. It was based on the assumption that the former vicar of St Albion would receive a thorough grilling and be deftly evasive. In the event, a deft evasion wasn't required as the "thorough grilling" turned out to be, at best, a gentle simmering, or possibly even a fricassée. [...]

The clue is in the name

Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge has been in the news a lot this week. These stories were all very serious issues that merit very serious discussion by very seriously-minded people. As I'm not a particularly seriously-minded person, however, I feel more comfortable turning my attention to something altogether more glib, trivial and frivolous. Namely, so to speak, Lord Judge's name. It does seem slightly odd (to me, at least) that someone with the surname Judge ends up becoming the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.  This would seem to support the theory of nominative determinism, whereby a person's surname [...]

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