Tom Lennon • Freelance Writer: comedy and pop culture

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

Latest Stuff

Only Forward

"Yet more than all this, the really lethal thing about the whole language of business - is that it is so brainlessly upbeat. All the celebrating, the reaching out, the sharing, and the championing in fact grind one down. Several decades too late, it is as if business has caught up with the linguistic spirit of 1968. The hippies got over it, but businessmen are holding tight."That's from Lucy Kellaway on Radio 4's A Point of View, which I found myself listening to whilst driving to work on Sunday morning. It made me smile and that doesn't often happen as [...]

The Plastic Beer Skiff Snake

Over the years I've seen many jaw-droppingly odd things happen at gigs. I went to an Eric Clapton concert in 1988 where the person standing directly in front of me spent the night yelling "JESUS! FORGIVE ME! SAVE US FROM OUR SINS!" at Old Mano Lenta. I can only assume he once saw the famous image of the brick wall with the 'Clapton is God' graffiti and took it all a bit too literally.The fact he bore an uncannily resemblance to Rasputin The Mad Monk didn't help matters. The yelling guy, that is, not Clapton. Clapton looked nothing like Rasputin [...]

‘Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends’

That, in case you don't know, is a Waiticism - a quote by the legendarily quotable singer-songwriter Tom Waits. Like many of Waits' lines I've used it at numerous society events and apologise now for giving anyone the impression that I'd invented it myself. I did, however, coin the phrase Waiticism. It's not one I'm particularly proud of. I picked up Friday's Independent because it had an interview with Waits. It turns out I'd already read it on his record label's website, but that didn't stop me from reading it again. Like his recent press conference, it plays fast and [...]