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Author: Adam

Happy New Yawn…

I’m too old for nightclubs, too cynical for cable TV, and too greedy to lose weight in this lifetime or however many it takes to reach enlightenment. But I can wish all my family and friends, not to mention the countless thousands of followers of this blog, a happy and prosperous new year! Keep smiling …

Time off for good behaviour

Holiday … it would be so nice! Why stop when you’re on a roll? Surely the thing to do is to milk the cow while the going’s good? But experience proves that, whatever line of work you happen to be in, taking a break is the best option in the long run. Taking a break works on many levels. Firstly, you get…

Mining gems from the Cesspool

Writing is perhaps the most beguiling of art forms. In fiction, for instance, we tend to avoid the more unpalatable facts of our existence and settle for a glossy approximation instead. We allude to these depths without being too explicit. And with good reason. Think what goes through your mind in an average twenty-four hour cycle. Would you really want this carnage imposed on your readers?  The…

Derek and Clive

‘All right, love, you can come out of the cubicle…’ So begins a wonderfully anarchic sketch from the late Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, as their alter egos Derek and Clive. Their first album Derek and Clive (Live), made in 1976, received mixed reviews but was quickly adopted by the punk generation and hailed as a masterpiece. Peter Cook began life as a…

I am Spartacus

Imagine how excited I was to find the esteemed film director Martin Scorsese following me on Twitter. But, wait … was this the Great Man himself or an imposter? Sadly, it would appear that anyone can set themselves up as a celebrity and tweet accordingly. Shouldn’t there be some form of screening in place to prevent this rather unfortunate misunderstanding from happening? And if not,…

The Big One

Ever tried to turn off the noise in your head? Try it for five minutes. Sit on a chair in a room with no external distraction and wait … The first thing you’ll experience is a thought, then another and another after that. That’s the problem with us human beings. Try as we might, we can’t turn off the machine. BBC2’s…

Fried Bread, Sausage and Baked Beans.

Having trouble losing that stubborn midriff?  Join the club – so am I! Why is it that everything bad tastes so good? I only have to glimpse a jam doughnut in the cake shop window and I’m salivating. Is there no defence against this debilitating weakness? None whatsoever, apparently. I might as well accept that I’m never going to be the athletic ten stone seven I…

Live hard, die young

When Kurt Cobain died on 5 April 1994, his mother was reputed to have said ‘Now he’s gone and joined that stupid club.’  She was referring to the earlier brace of talent struck down in their prime, known in music circles as ‘the 27 Club.’ Like Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendix, Jim Morrison and Brian Jones all perished at the tender…

Marathon Bloggers unite

My Goodness! Have you any idea how many bloggers there are out there? Thousands of us, all beavering away over traumatised keypads. Where once we used to dwell in humble obscurity, now we have the wonders of technology to publicise our innermost thoughts. Is this a good thing? Given our endless fascination with the written word, I’d say yes. Just don’t expect an…

A Night at the Oscars

In honour of my mis-spent youth in darkened cinemas, below are my Top Ten favourite movies. 1. Goodfellas  (1990) Scorcese’s masterpiece never fails to entertain. The tension. The drama. Tommy’s volcanic rage at the world. If you had shoes like Henry’s, wouldn’t you want to be a gangster!                                                                                                           Director: Martin Scorsese 2. Withnail and I  (1987) More Shakespeare than the Bard…