Big news in my little world, and I regret to say it appears to be a done deal, though there is a campaign: Russell Davies' Sunday...

 I have just heard that Lou Reed has died so I am reposting this piece from 2012. The Word - a magazine I ought to have read more ofte...

Have just watched Reuben, Reuben for the second time - with a gap of about thirty years in between. The first time was, if memory serve...

Clips from this edition of Crackerjack have has featured in several documentaries (Danny Baker's programme on Peter Glaze and The Unf...

A clip of 14 Karat Soul not seen before (by me) is cause for celebration. Presumably this is Sesame Street as the background is the same as ...

No time, I'm afraid, to write a detailed post, so consider this an interim bulletin for those who might care. This blog is going back to...

   One final astonishing set of Beatles coincidences has recently been sent to me by a reader of this blog. I present them below. T...

It's not music-related, but I just had a really good idea which I'd like to share. I like to swim, and I take shampoo and showe...

On a certain social networking site I have been entertaining (or not) family and friends with youtube clips of fave songs which actually...

When Frank Zappa used a phrase like "cretinous love songs of greasy simplicity" he may have been thinking about records like t...

                                                                                                 Ah, go on, give us a go ... Yes, th...

My final extract from Bizarre Beatles Coincidences is perhaps the most staggering of all. After this you really will have to buy the book...

On the general subject of new or newish sitcoms I have been unimpressed with two of the latest, Family Tree and Big School. The former is di...

There's an interview with Steve Delaney, creator of Count Arthur Strong, here . It's worth reading all the way through, but the r...

Another extract from my forthcoming book Bizarre Beatles Coincidences. Please consider contributing to my Kickstarter page as the Amer...

   [ Find a revised version of this post here .] It doesn't really need to be said, because you'll either get it or you won't...

Some more BIZARRE and ASTONISHING coincidences from my forthcoming book. Murray the K, as everybody knows, was the fifth Beatle, contri...

There has already been interest from America in publishing Bizarre Beatles Coincidences as a proper book, with an advance offered and eve...

  I am about to self-publish my new book entitled "Bizarre Beatles Coincidences - Or Are They?!" As a lifelong student of the...

This is to bring you the happy news that Three Hats For Lisa, the candyfloss-light yet endearing film musical which I wrote about in this...

 [ Find a revised version of this post here . ] For reasons I will make clear at a later date the subject matter - the yoking together o...

 A Ball boss, a bell boy, and a marked mobster.  Why do they sound like lunatics?And in which dame's watery domain might they feel at ...

Okay, here's one. A Lawrentian betting aid;  a Beatles' album before a family intervention;  a hillbilly's tribute to the mi...

Alright, this wasn't actually sent to Round Britain Quiz, as I only thought of it just now, when I should have been doing other things. ...

Some kind person has uploaded the Ravens' long-missing On Chapel Hill to youtube, so  that once again it may sing out underhindered on t...

This is a favourite gospel recording of mine which I only found on youtube recently. I first heard it on Viv Broughton's 1985 Black Gosp...

Apologies to regular readers for this prolonged absence from my post - or posts; frankly I didn't think anyone would notice, but I'm...

 Wow! Some kind person has uploaded a session 14 Karat Soul did for Radio 1 in the early 80s to youtube and it sounds the closest yet to m...

Remember Joyce Carol Oates? Yeah, that's right, the one who told the Guardian in 2012 that "Situation comedy ... distorts the c...

As with the previous question, the answer, if you have given up all hope of alighting on it naturally, is below - but you have to make the c...

Okay, one more. I found this in an old email but I can't remember the answer. I'm sure there will be one. Ah. I do remember the s...

I don't normally do mini-soundbite-type posts but this is irresistible - Paul Merton talking about his forthcoming autobiography: Unti...

Incredible though it sounds, it is now the fortieth anniversary of the film That'll Be the Day. If you have travelled deep within t...

Before you look down below, if you want to have a go at my Round Britain Quiz-type question go to the previous post, here . Here's the...

Okay, this is a fiendish one, and shall be the last for a while. Pretty certain this is one which was actually despatched to the programme, ...

Ah, I can add the bits which will make it a proper RBQ questiion. (Insofar as such a thing is within my power, obviously.) So here is the co...

Okay, here's one which was gently turned down by RBQ in 2009. It doesn't have enough sections but it amuses me so I present it here....

Find an abode suitable for a Cockney dancing partner reluctant to accept direction, an artistic creature of habit, and a seamstress of the...

To find the hometown of a female authority on the longevity of Lucy's accessories, put m uddy feet on a victorious leaf. To identify ...

Well, I showed the RBQ-style question in the previous post to a colleague who pointed out, in a reasonably gentle manner, the ways in which ...

A while back I shared a self-devised Round Britain Quiz-type question with readers but couldn't find the cache of emails which I ha...

I was watching the interview on BBC 4 with writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais the other night. It's very enjoyable and worth w...

Have just read that Cuddles the monkey is preparing for the lead role of Vindice in a new production of The Revenger's Tragedy. T...

 Surprising  news: there is now a second volume of Donovan's autobiography, and you can download  the first part of an audio version ...

I've really been enjoying the Insight series on BBC Radio 6 Music. You can find a guide to the currently available epsiodes here ; t...

I may have to curtail the extended blog posts for a bit, but I'm still going to try to post regularly - maybe even make a virtue of...

For fans of Freddie Davies within reach of London, the happy news that he is currently appearing in The Secret Garden at the King's H...

  Have just read that Richard Briers has died. I was lucky enough to see him in Ray Cooney's Run For Your Wife at the Shaftesbury Th...

This documentary about younger artists recreating the Beatles' day-long recording session for their first LP was better than I expect...

I have written earlier in this blog of the surprising omission, in later editions of Philip Larkin's All What Jazz, of his review of ...