The real Henry Higgins
Reading this obituary took me back thirty odd years to a lecture theatre in a brutalist concrete building in Leeds. The first year English students were being lectured about accent and dialect by the

Visitors
Too busy to blog much of late, but thought I would mention a gig by The Visitors. They were at The Studio in Manchester to launch their new CD, and a small but select band were there to see it. They are led by Karl Walsh, a Madchester scene veteran, and play power

Ah, friends eclectic
More music on this allegedly literary blog. People often claim to have very broad musical tastes, but this is often not borne out in fact. When some starlet or reality TV show participant says something like "Oh I love all kinds of music - anything from Rihanna to the Pussycat Dolls" you sense that their idea of music isn't, shall we say, particularly well-developed. Jools Holland, whom God preserve, said on his radio show recently that it really annoyed hime when people said of a particular artist or type of music "Oh sorry, before my time" as if an

Thirty Year Man
Clive James was 70 this week. When he was a mere stripling in his thirties, I discovered the work he had done with Pete Atkin on a series of albums just coming to a premature end in the face of indifference from the great British public and the big record companies. I've been a fan ever since, so w

It's nice to be recognised...
...especially by the mighty Normblog. Thanks Norm!