2000s

This year the shock news broke that Michael Eugene Archer, better known as D'Angelo, passed away at the tender age of 51 years old. As such, the world has lost one of the most brilliant artists of our time and one who left a trail of incredible music in his wake. So it is only appropriate that we pay homage by reviewing one of the greatest albums of the past 25 years, certainly the greatest soul album by some distance, the year 2000-released, meandering masterpiece that is 'V

"I hate tennis." - Andre Agassi  The sports autobiography. It is a tough nut to crack. They often find themselves falling somewhere between 'mildly disappointing' and 'woeful'. For further reading on the matter, there is a fantastically hilarious piece written by the great David Foster Wallace on why this appears to be the case (the appropriately titled 'How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart'). The abbreviated conclusion is along the lines that what makes these people outstandin

If you are a person who has somehow happened upon this blog, or whatever this is, then you will know that I unashamedly love WWF (now WWE) wrestling. Back in the day I loved it so much that I dressed up as a wrestler for my 10th birthday, and that wrestler was Bret 'The Hitman' Hart. Well, I was actually Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart because the kid I was sharing a birthday with was harder and cooler than me, but that's beside the point. The point is, in the early 1990s no one was

“You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle” This book, now a popular series on Netflix, is a romantic comedy steeped very much in the Richard Curtis / Nick Hornby tradition of middle class white people doing middle class white people things. On paper, this sounds potentially irritating, instead it's written in such an earn

Alfonso Cuarón has proved himself over the years to be one of the most innovative and brilliant directors around. His work spans across many different styles, but it's hard to argue that he knows how to put a film together. If you've ever seen the car-chase sequence in 'Children of Men', or any of 'Gravity' you know he knows how to do big cinema with the best of them, as evidenced by helming probably the most beloved film in the Harry Potter series, 'The Prisoner of Azkaban'.

“There are no secrets about the world of nature. There are secrets about the thoughts and intentions of men.” Most people in this day and age, myself included, didn't necessarily know the name of J. Robert Oppenheimer until Christopher Nolan's brilliant film came out and swept the 2024 Oscars. However, back in the early 1950s he was probably the most famous person on planet earth. Described as the father of the nuclear bomb, his face was plastered the covers on publications

"I wondered if sometimes the difference between a psychopath in Broadmoor and a psychopath on Wall Street was the luck of being born into a stable, rich family.” Jon Ronson is an investigative journalist who shot to fame when his first book 'The Men Who Stare at Goats' became not only a best-seller, but also a major Hollywood film starring George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey. Quite the cast. Here he turns his microscope to what it means to be conside

If you're anything like me, you probably haven't given much thought to how the food actually gets to your plate when ordering in a restaurant. You sit down, you eat, you drink, you soak in the atmosphere, you pay and you leave - either satisfied or not. What doesn't occur is the absolute miracle that has taken place behind those swinging doors for this experience to even take place at all.  Anthony Bourdain's 'Kitchen Confidential' came out in the year 2000 to widespread acc