Be honest, we've all done it. You've had a bad day, the kids are doing your head in, there's tension with the wife, work is tough, you've had a couple of drinks, you pick up the guitar, drop your voice about 19 octaves, stare out the window and mournfully croon "I hear the train a-coming, it's rollin' round the bend, and I ain't see the sunshine, since I don't know when". Or that might just be me. Whose to say. Either way, there is no denying the magnetism woven into the musi

“I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin." In the course of a person's life, there usually comes a time where you encounter things that move you. They may touch your soul in an emotive way - maybe you're reminded of a gentle summer's day frolicking in a hazy strawberry field as a wee bairn, maybe you're reminded of what it means to be human and all that comes with it. Who knows? However, sometimes you

Golf, what a cruel and seductive temptress ye be. If you know the god-like feeling of smashing a 250-yard drive down the fairways of Portugal, you likely also know the utter despair of hitting a wedge 6 yards in the winter bog of grey old England. For anyone who has ever attempted any level of sustained participation in this horror-sport, they will understand the agony and ecstasy involved in one simple round. And thankfully, this book exists to try and make sense of it all.

Since it's inception, the movie business has captured the imagination of the masses all over the world. Hollywood, at least it's in heyday, was the epitome of glamour itself. A place where all you had to have was a dollar and a dream and you too could one day find yourself under the bright lights. However, by the late 1960s, Hollywood's glory days seemed to be hanging by a thread and a new wave of revolutionary filmmakers were coming forth, influenced by the counter-culture o

Having gone from the slums of New York City, to active duty in the US Marine Core, to platinum-selling artist, to now BBC Radio 2 DJ who lives quietly in the suburbs of Brighton, it is safe to say that Huey Morgan has lived quite a life. With his band, the Fun Lovin' Criminals, Huey managed to carve out a sub-genre that really only contains one band. I'm not sure anyone else has ever considered putting out wiseguy-inspired, hip-hop-influenced, brass-band-led, punk music apart

"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

“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

Al Pacino. You know him. You love him. You've attempted to impersonate Tony Montana's famous line "Say hello to my little friend!" in Pacino's utterly absurd Cuban lilt. You've gone wide-eyed and yelled "She's got a...GREAT ASS!" when you've had too many drinks and the term "Just when I thought I was out....they pull me back in" has become almost ubiquitous at this point. To put it in simple terms, Al Pacino is a Hollywood legend and not only is he responsible for some of the