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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Kinky Friedman’s Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover

I wouldn't normally do this sort of thing, but this evening I've been reading The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover by the country singer, humourist, crime novelist, politician and self-appointed cigar czar Kinky Friedman and I just had to share the following gem: 'It is a rather tedious fact of life that most of us who are confined to the human condition spend a great deal of time wanting to be something we're not. Or someone we're not. The proctologist, scrupulously washing his hands before and after each patient, dreams of being Dr Albert Schweitzer. The rock star, [...]

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda, Didn’t

Here's another pesky but obligatory year-end list for me to get out of my system: it's my Top 5 list of the gigs I really would have liked to have gone to in 2008 but for one reason or another didn't.I'm sure I can come up with something snappier than that.5. Public Enemy, Custard Factory, Birmingham. I mentioned this during one of my 11-11-11 write-ups, but sort of subsequently forgot about it. I'm sure it would have been fun.4. Band of Horses, Birmingham Academy. Clare bought us a pair of tickets, there was a mix up over the dates and [...]

My Top 5 Gigs of 2009

Why Top 5? Why not a Top 10? As a lapsed Discordian I was going to knock out a rather elaborate, mind-bending explanation based on the 'Law of Fives' (which, according to Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! Trilogy, claims that everything in the universe can be connected to the number five if you try hard enough), but that looked too much like hard work.Instead, I'll just tell you the truth: I opted for a Top 5 because I didn't go to very many gigs in 2008.Five of 'em, though, were fucking awesome...5. Bearsuit, Latitude Festival 2008 - Pete [...]

Top Ten Commandments

It's embarrassing to admit this, but we're into the third week of January and I still haven't cobbled together one of those obligatory end-of-the-year lists for 2008. I can't begin to explain how bad this makes me feel.These lists have become such a staple of the blogosphere that each and every one of us feels obliged to complete one each and every year. You know the sort of thing: My Top 10 Albums of 2008, My Top 10 Films of 2008, My Top 10 Bloody Top 10s of 2008... each one a highly subjective attempt to reduce the year's cultural [...]

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