Elton does Orwell? Sorry, that’s just wrong
ELTON John’s first professional gig was with a blues band that covered Memphis Slim and Muddy Waters. But he quit that outfit in 1967, and pianistically speaking, it has been downhill for the Rocket Man ever since. Now we read that the third most successful recording artist of all time has teamed up with the guy who [...]
Reflections on working until 70 (and that Helen Mirren topless pic)
WHEN a man reaches the point where gum disease is more of an immediate health risk than STD, he knows he is getting on a bit. I shamelessly recycle this 1990s PJ O’Rourke joke only to draw to readers’ attention to the fact that I celebrated my 50th birthday last month. Or, more precisely, didn’t [...]
The class politics of food-drink matching
SAY what you like about my old man, but he certainly had this food-drink matching malarkey sussed out. For him, the only pertinent question was whether it would take four, six or eight pints of Watneys Red Barrel fully to eviscerate from the palate whatever muck my mum served with chips on any given evening. What is [...]
