Brighton
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Brighton Folk Choir: Apple Blossom Day, Stanmer Park
Last folk choir gig, we were still in wassail season: January, cold, mulled cider, and songs swathed in winter spirits and fear of darkness. Late April, and you would expect a different idiom. But it’s been a cold and damp spring, as befits our climate-uncertain times of underwater county cricket grounds and new-build estates on… Read more
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The subscribe to my newsletter T-shirt is raising a lot of questions already answered by my subscribe to my newsletter T-shirt
I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about what, or who, I’m writing for here on m’blog, which sometimes feels like a bit of a Mary Celeste from an earlier blogging sea in comparison to my newsletter over on Substack. In my head the newsletter is the more “professional” presence, with lots of links to… Read more
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AndAlso Easter Showcase (aka James’ Armando debut)
Improv! I have been doing a 12 week “level 3” improv course with AndAlso, the corporate offshoot of The Maydays and premiere Brighton-based improv nexus, and Wednesday was our debut performance. I’ve only done improv live on stage once before: as a made-up film director at a live recording of the Improvised Movie Director Podcast.… Read more
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Extra Topping with Rosalie Minnitt, Al Nash, The Magic Lady, and a Viking of some description
To the Extra Topping Comedy Showcase, then, which has MOVED from a rugby-obsessed pub in residential Hove to upstairs at the Yellow Book in Brighton’s fashionable York Place. Dog tarot cards on the table: I really liked the old venue. It was a comfy upstairs room, and an audience of locals being confused by some… Read more
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Sartorial Matters
A youth near the coach stop asked me “what’s it like being posh?” as I walked past. I wasn’t even wearing my beret. There was a plaintive undertone to the miscreant’s pointed question, beyond the simple diss. I was wearing a hand-me-down tweed jacket, a monochrome shirt with ferns on it, black jeans, and adidas… Read more
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Maybe the true conspiracy was the friends we didn’t make along the way
I had a conversation with a conspiracy theorist last week. He sat down at my table in the cafe where I was working, with a young friend, and proceeded to tell her lots of stuff that was complete nonsense. 5G, Covid vaccinations, world government… the usual stuff, rejigged and rejiggled to fit his own particular… Read more
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Brighton Marina
If you’re in the mood for some discombobulation, I can recommend Brighton Marina on a drizzly February morning. Built on land reclaimed from the sea, the marina was a 1970s project, turned into a Thatcher’s island kind of retail park in the mid 1980s. It is dominated by a giant Asda and car park, and… Read more
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This Machine Kills Wasps with MJ Hibbett, The Highchurches, Jo Burke, Shelf, Selena Mersey, and Mikey Bligh Smith
I arrive early, and the sound guy is already there. Conveniently, his name is Guy. Guy, the sound guy. Sound guy Guy. Guy Guy sound. He is friendly, and Australian. We have a nice chat, and as he sets up the stage, I learn his interest in experimental rock, music theory, and production. This is… Read more
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‘I am basically Taylor Swift with Cheaper Trousers’: an interview with MJ Hibbett
Note: this interview first appeared in my newsletter, which you can subscribe to here. Indiepop legend and writer of some of the most life-affirming songs, well, EVER, Mark “MJ” Hibbett, is headlining my show This Machine Kills Wasps on Thursday 8th Feb at the lovely Folklore Rooms in Brighton. To celebrate this FACT I got… Read more
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The Ace Doctor Who Podcast reviews The 2023 Christmas Special: The Church On Ruby Road
It was a very interesting experience, editing this in a pub in New Year’s Eve, removing pregnant pauses to a banging soundtrack of Heaven 17 and The Human League. I uploaded it before midnight, which was met in our local by a crack addict falsely announcing that he had just proposed to his newly pregnant… Read more
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