[Writing about television programmes really takes it out of me, so you'll have to wait for the final post in the current run, because it will take a bit more time to get it all together. So, here's something completely unrelated.] I was born and bred in London and, with…
[I interrupt my catching up on television programmes to talk about something that isn't a television programme, but at least it's about someone who has been in television programmes.] Chris Addison has a slightly bigger profile than Lucy Porter, who I saw last month – he plays Ollie in The…
Lucy Porter is a comedian who has been on the comedy scene for quite a while now, but I hadn't seen one of her full shows, even though she has been making appearances on television in the likes of Annually Retentive and Mock The Week. I enjoy comedians who put…
When talking about podcasts recently, I didn't really talk about the radio shows that I listened to as podcasts, perhaps because they're cheating a little, what with their professional recording apparatus and editing facilities. The Now Show, becoming something of an institution on Radio 4 after broadcasting for over 10…
Growing up in London, I never considered Croydon part of London – it was a suburb that marked the boundary between the sprawling metropolis and the boring countryside. This was misguided ignorance on my part, as I had never been there, didn't know anybody who lived there or even looked…
One of the series of posts I have written is about comic book shops – I'm very lucky, living in London, to have a lot of comic book shops in relatively close proximity, even though I mention other comic book shops that a particular resonance in my development as a…
I’ve had the pleasure of attending author appearances in smallish venues – I saw Terry Pratchett in a small hall somewhere in Canterbury back in the early 1990s, and Neil Gaiman (promoting the novelisation of Neverwhere) on the second floor of a Waterstone's in London in the mid-1990s (back before…
Is an hour too long a distance to travel to buy half-price comics and graphic novels from a comic book shop that is going out of business? Is 8am too early to get up on a Sunday morning to do this? Should I feel guilty and a little sleazy for…
Because I'm, like, incredibly sophisticated and stuff, I go to art galleries to see actual works of art. I'm not saying this to impress you (although that is an unfortunate side-effect), it's just a reason to post about my trip and put up some images. The Royal Academy of Art…
As mentioned recently, it was my birthday, so I did something to celebrate. Not being a drinker, I don’t gather a group of friends in a pub to poison ourselves to the point of vomiting and spending the next day in bed; instead, I try to something a little different.…