A little light relief in a week of doom ‘n’ gloom – a couple of videos as a break between the news, albeit ones that address issues far from funny. The first is a new ‘un, whereas the
Continue reading →The Tap Room Video Show
The Long and Winding Road to Damascus
On Wednesday, the Commons will debate and vote on whether the fearsome might of the RAF â all half-dozen available planes â will join the US and the French in dropping bombs on Syria in the optimistic
Continue reading →The Thin Blue Line
Politics, it is true, attracts certain âtypesâ, often in stereo. On the left, there is the social crusader whose guilt at his comfortable middle-class upbringing is manifested as doing the right thing by those who didnât share
Continue reading →A New Broom
I was all for packing my bags and hitching out of town when the final missive from the previous premises was delivered. I anticipated a few fond farewells, but I always imagined my predecessor had a monopoly
Continue reading →Our Sweet Lords
Out-of-touch, privileged, cosseted from the real world, little or no interest in what goes on beyond their bubble, imbued with an arrogant born-to-rule sense of their own importance; sons, daughters, nephews and nieces of former occupants, inheriting
Continue reading →When is A Woman not A Woman?
…when she has a vagina, apparently. Germaine Greer is a woman, but not one at the top of Cardiff Universityâs Student Union Christmas card list. Why? Because she dares to mention the unmentionable, that transsexuals arenât actually
Continue reading →Slack Narcissus
Cate Blanchett is an intriguing actress â interesting-looking, androgynous, a touch of Garbo about her. She climbed higher in my estimation last week when expressing her exasperation at her peers indulging in endless selfies when attending a
Continue reading →Watson Tide
If we were to think of those who voted for the 2003 Allied invasion of Iraq and did their utmost to block any investigation into the affair, certain obvious names would leap forward; itâs significant that these
Continue reading →Thoroughly Modern Morals
A long-time commentator on here pointed me in the direction of a Channel 4 programme looking back at TV from the 60s the other week; I was tempted solely by the fact that an ageing Peter Wyngarde
Continue reading →Angels with Dirty Faces
An 11-year-old in Jefferson County, Tennessee this week shot dead his 8-year-old neighbour because she wouldnât let him play with her puppy; the shotgun belonged to his father. Across the Atlantic almost fifteen years earlier, Bristol
Continue reading →The Ring Cycle
Back in the 1980s, I was an avid reader of the music press, and my favourite weekly was âMelody Makerâ. Within a few months of purchasing my first issue, I became familiar with the different writers on
Continue reading →Good Evans?
John Leslie, one-time âBlue Peterâ presenter and 1990s mainstream TV mainstay, has recently spoken of the accusation that effectively ended his high-profile, £350,000-a-year career. The story that emerged into the public domain in 2002 appeared in
Continue reading →Anyone for Denis?
When Tony Benn died last year, the obituaries tended to focus on the radical old uncle of the elder statesman years rather than the belligerent troublemaker of the turbulent early 80s. Benn successfully reshaped his public perception
Continue reading →Who’s The Daddy Now?
Excuse me while I light up. I smoke a lot of cigarettes and drink a lot of black coffee whilst writing; my teeth bear the scars, but it could be worse, I suppose. At least Iâm not
Continue reading →Party On, Dude!
It might not be everybodyâs idea of entertaining television â and, to be frank, itâs not necessarily mine; but the party conference season is with us again, and at one time this strange, ritualistic Eurovision-for-politicians spectacle used
Continue reading →Comic Cuts
Beyond the endless TV mags, titillating rags and metrosexual men’s handbooks, I spied a tiny handful of what used to be called comics on the newsstand the other day. All bar one notable exception appeared to be movie merchandise, just
Continue reading →The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle
Sometimes a face gatecrashes the public consciousness with such force that the imprint of the image acquires an immortal permanence; the owner of the iconic countenance in question remains fixed as that face way beyond the point
Continue reading →Luck Be a Tory Tonight
Whatever part competence, judgement and vision play in a premiership, the factors of timing and luck should never be underestimated. Robert Walpole emerged from the chaos of the South Sea Bubble and sold himself as the only
Continue reading →Spamalot & The Sunday Obituary
Members of staff at the Raccoon Arms are not solely engaged in serving the customers, pulling pints, changing barrels, preventing patrons from buying too many packets of peanuts merely to see if the model on the board
Continue reading →The Hunt for Red September
Being a starving artist in a garret and all that, social outings arenât so abundant; but I do make a point of venturing out to my local parade of shops each morning and if thereâs one thing
Continue reading →Grace and Fervour
September 1955, exactly sixty years ago â a momentous month for popular culture that drew a line in the sand, signalling the division between the old world and the new; in the case of the latter, it
Continue reading →Citizen Corbyn
Itâs official. New Labour is dead. Long live Old Labour. Jeremy Corbyn is now the Leader of Her Majestyâs Opposition. Imagine Jacob Rees-Mogg being elected Tory leader. Pretty unimaginable, to be honest, yet Comrade Corbynâs election win
Continue reading →Publish and Be Damned
Hitlerâs Germany, Stalinâs Russia, Maoâs China, Honeckerâs DDR â mandatory reporting to the authorities by friends, families and neighbours, phone-taps, wire-taps, cameras tracking the moves of every citizen, persistent persecution of targets by a police force making
Continue reading →A Picture Fells A Thousand Tories
What a difference a week makes. For a long time now, what used to be asylum-seekers before being rebranded migrants and then suddenly refugees have been dying at sea in appallingly high numbers, many fleeing war-torn Syria.
Continue reading →Long To Reign Over Us
David Bowie once said weâve got five years. Well, weâve got five days now. No, donât worry; I havenât received advanced warning of a meteorite poised to crash into the planet. Iâm referring to the fact that,
Continue reading →Stop Your Sobbing
Rape and culture/rape and culture/go together like a…well, those two words donât really go together at all, do they? An oxymoron is, I believe, the correct term. Culture is described by the dictionary I prepared earlier as
Continue reading →The Collapsing Crucible
Something very interesting has happened in the past few months. Johnny may have come lately, but heâs here at last. Beyond the bunkers that have sheltered common sense from an incessant shower of bile fired by obsessive
Continue reading →The Shipping Forecast
So many nautical terms are open to misinterpretation by landlubbers that anyone poised to set sail really needs to know a gash fanny from a cunt splice; failure to do so could result in kissing the gunnerâs
Continue reading →Blowing One’s Trumpet
Momentarily putting aside those issues that invoke impassioned debate as well as those that inspire apathy, allow the management the luxury of basking in the rewards of their endeavours, pop-pickers. The latest figures for the top
Continue reading →Obama Vista Social Club
Family feuds can drag on for decades. Weâve all known siblings who had a big bust-up over something years ago, something nobody can even remember anymore, and still refuse to be in the same room as one another,
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