Julian Cope’s first novel, 131, opens with its protagonist, a former rock star brilliantly named Rock Section, trapped in an aircraft toilet, covered in his own excrement. “Your novel begins at the point where many would end,” I suggest. “Yes,” agrees Cope, “it’s the same as ‘Like A Hurricane’ by Neil Young. Straight in with…
Last night I had dinner with the molecular microbiologist Professor Keith Gull. He discussed the information overload that has taken shape in academia his lifetime, and how it has affected the working methods of his students. Over spinach and egg, Professor Gull identified the need to be able to extract the relevant points from the…
Kevin Eldon is described as British comedy’s most prolific supporting star – and for the first time, he’s got his own show, It’s Kevin, starting on BBC Two. Kevin’s friend and long time collaborator Stewart Lee introduces who exactly this Kevin Eldon bloke is. The teenage Kevin Eldon occupied half a page in a book…
Much of the history of protest in my lifetime has concerned the enforced occupation of physical space, from the perimeter fence of Greenham Common Air Base to tunnels beneath the A30 extension in Devon, to the Occupy Movement’s own encampments in Wall Street and The City, to a grocer’s in Hastings I refused to leave…
I first saw The Ex in November 1986, in a pub in Oxford, before Andy Moor joined Terrie Ex on guitar. I liked noise. But The Ex’s noise was about something, a crafted and constructed sequence of intense moments and sustained power; and there were spaces for the band to surprise themselves. On the way…
I am a stand-up comedian. I am Eighteen years younger than John Dowie. I never saw him perform stand-up. As a teenager, I bought a copy of his book, Hard To Swallow, a collection of his “abandoned comedy routines” illustrated by the underground cartoonist Hunt Emmerson; I had seen him on TV occasionally, doing slots…