Showing 511 results for: Written For Money
Billy Connolly / Ken Bigley - October 2004 Glasgow Herald - October 1st, 2004
During the Edinburgh Fringe Festival a few years ago a cab driver asked me who my favourite stand-ups were. I mentioned Billy Connolly amongst the usual international top ten. The cab driver explained that he hated Billy Connolly because he was ‘too English.’ I didn’t know what this meant exactly. Was it perhaps that Connolly…
Students - September 2004 The Independent On Sunday - September 5th, 2004
In the late 80’s Margaret Thatcher, the then prime-minister, took a tour of our University. In a library she stopped and asked a young woman what she was studying. “Norse literature,” she replied. And Thatcher said, “What a luxury.” Now, Njal’s saga might not be to everyone’s taste, but in a civilised country surely we…
Jackson’s Way - August 2004 The Sunday Times - August 1st, 2004
The American motivational speaker has rapidly become a staple of character comedy, which returns to the fringe in cycles of approximately three years. On paper then, Will Adamsdale’s Chris John Jackson, author of Maximum Jackson and inventor of the philosophy of Jackson’s Way, is not an appetising proposition. But Adamsdale merely uses this familiar trope…
An Arthur Shaped Hole - July 2004 The Sunday Times - July 11th, 2004
Like all good mythical heroes, King Arthur is all things to all men. For the poets of the middle ages, his legend provided the perfect empty vessel into which to pour the ideals of Courtly Love. For Henry II, who attempted to legitimise his own rule via Arthurian precedents established in Geoffrey Of Monmouth’s semi-spurious…
The Long Ryders - June 2004 The Sunday Times - June 13th, 2004
The rock band reunion is no longer an inherently embarrassing concept. This Summer, their reputation having swollen considerably in their absence, and their influence evident from Nirvana’s Nevermind onwards, the 80’s American alternative band The Pixies are playing to packed stadiums of former fans, more used to seeing them in tiny clubs, and curious latter…