Nov 27, 2021Sherwood Anderson — Winesburg, OhioIn French, “collège” means something like a middle school or junior high. My French friends apprised me of this quite early in my Paris years, after a couple of dinner parties where I regaled a shocked table with tales of my ‘college’ exploits. In truth, my third-level action was quite…Literature4 min readLiterature4 min read
Oct 23, 2021Capricorn OneConspiracy theorists among you will remember how I revealed who was behind Donald Trump’s 2016 US presidential election victory. On top of that, I also steered you towards Jack the Ripper’s real identity. Aside from that, though, I have no time for the more dangerous tinfoil-hatted eejitry such as your…Movies3 min readMovies3 min read
Oct 9, 2021Annie — ‘Chewing Gum’As a runner, I’m often asked: “What do you listen to when you run?” Answer: nothing. I don’t wear earphones or carry devices when I run. I have several reasons for this. The first is an instinct for self-preservation; while running on streets and roads I find it safer to…Pop Music3 min readPop Music3 min read
Sep 7, 2021Peur Sur La VilleLong before I lived and worked in Paris, my first exposure to French pop culture was Hexagone, the ’80s French textbook we used in our ’90s secondary school in Ireland. Mainland France is shaped like a hexagon, you see. We studied French and German in first year, and then our…French Cinema6 min readFrench Cinema6 min read
Aug 10, 2021Dead of NightSo, how do you feel about England? That may depend on what you consider to be England — for instance, the English football players taking the knee together to embody a shared modern multicultural community that values persons of colour, or the English football watchers abusing them for their [checks…Movies3 min readMovies3 min read
Jul 27, 2021Amel Bent — ‘Ma Philosophie’All through my first year living in Paris, this was the song I heard everywhere. Daytime radio, from what was blaring in shops and cafes, couldn’t play it often enough. All manner of TV shows — chat, politics, football — played it in full or in snippets, as a sort…Music3 min readMusic3 min read
Jun 29, 2021Jonathan Richman — ‘I’m So Confused’In the late afternoon of New Year’s Eve 2002 I was in a record store in Pamplona, Spain. This wasn’t some quaint old joint in the touristy bull-running town centre, where earlier I had been enjoying tapas with my friends, but a brightly-lit premises jammed in between the ground-floor supermercado…Music4 min readMusic4 min read
May 20, 2021Buckcherry — ‘Lit Up’This must be the dumbest, stoopidest record ever made. Let me explain to you why I love it. For one thing, it kicks off with a crunching, blitzkrieg-ing glam guitar sound that doesn’t relent for the entire track. The riff is basically a lift from a Kiss single, but what…Music3 min readMusic3 min read
May 11, 2021Nora Ephron — HeartburnLearn new languages, hone new skills, tone new abs; a lot of us saw this pandemic lockdown as the opportunity we’d been waiting for all our lives. Time previously spent commuting and socialising was now in our gift. We would apply ourselves, improve ourselves, emerge from this better. Another delusional…Books4 min readBooks4 min read
Apr 12, 2021The Honeymoon KillersOkay, I get why people are missing busy pubs, pounding nightclubs and heaving concert venues. I used to love and frequent all those social sardine-tins for years, often going to four loud, crowded concerts a week, before I came to love staying home watching football more. What I don’t get…Film4 min readFilm4 min read
