I love new music. It’s not out of some desperate desire to remain hip and relevant in my 40s because let’s face it that never works as a deliberate strategy and you end up only as an object of pity by pitiless Gen Ys. No, I love new music because Continue Reading
COMICS: Calvin and Hobbes the Next Generation
Webcomic Pants Are Overrated has given Calvin and Hobbes a re-birth of sorts by fast forwarding 26 years, and the results are nothing short of magical. I feel like I have met up again with an old, dear and greatly missed friend, and I am supremely happy. (Their website is Continue Reading
Mary Poppins (musical, Capitol Theatre Sydney, 1 December) – review
Chim-chiminey, chim-chiminey, chim-chim-chiree! Who doesn’t recognize this joyful toe-tapping tune? It is the melodic heartbeat of Bert the Cockney chimney sweep and jack-of-all-trade,s and his fellow denizens of the rooftops of Edwardian London as they whistle and trill their way through an exhausting and dirty job. But you would never Continue Reading
Kathy Griffin (Opera House, 30 November) – review
What would happen if overnight, or even instantly on air, all the presenters on all the vapid entertainment shows suddenly started saying what they really thought about the celebrities they report on day in, day out? Why, my friends, it already has (kind of) and this much needed phenomenon’s name Continue Reading
Ceremonials – Florence and The Machine (review)
This is an album of astonishing vocal and melodic beauty. Florence Welch, who dazzled us with her ability to wrap her voice about the most exquisite of emotional textures on Lungs, returns with an album that ranges from the intensely intimate and heartfelt to the epic and anthemic. At times, Continue Reading
Ides of March (review)
Purity of belief is a powerful thing. It undergirds the faithful, drives the true believer and blinds the zealot. It is a virtue. It is a liability. It is the catalyst for war and the handmaiden of peace… … and it is a stranger to the art of politics, which Continue Reading
Happy Birthday in a million pretty pixels
It’s my birthday tomorrow. (Thank you, thank you, your warm wishes are greatly appreciated… and not at all solicited) So it got me thinking. Not just about cake, and how far I have to run (Ecuador? Burkina Faso? The moon?) to burn off enough calories in preparation for the all Continue Reading
Should someone like the pepper spraying cop be a meme*?
That may seem like an odd question but hear me out. Ever since Lt John Pike assured himself of almost instant viral infamy by pepper spraying peacefully protesting students at the University of California, he has been pilloried by Netizens who have gleefully ridiculed him for his controversial tactics. But Continue Reading
50 Words for Snow – Kate Bush (review)
A new album from Kate Bush, her second this year (which is amazing given the six years since Aerial) and I am in love all over again. Of course, I have loved Kate Bush with a peculiar passion ever since my first drama lesson with Mrs Derritt in Year 7 Continue Reading
The changing face of television
“I’m freeee!” This is instantly recognisable to anyone over 35 as the less than subtle catchphrase of Mr Humphries, the flamboyant menswear salesman from the 1970s British sitcom, “Are You Being Served?”(1972-1985). Though he was never explicitly identified as a gay man, it was clear from his mannerisms and innuendo-laden Continue Reading