Music
The first Division – Peter Hook’s Unknown Pleasures
A good book about popular music will always give you a new appreciation of the records. Joy Division bassist Peter Hook’s Unknown Pleasures, just published in paperback by Simon & Schuster,… Continue reading
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Review: Mod! – A Very British Style, by Richard Weight
Doesn’t it all seem a long time ago? For years, the 1960s remained a key cultural reference, universally understood. But then, at some point, probably around the turn of the… Continue reading
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Bigmouth Strikes Again
Johnny Marr’s at it again. ‘David Cameron is not allowed to like my music,’ he fumes. He revives his disgust for Cameron’s love of The Smiths at least once every three months. God… Continue reading
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Trevor Grills: the terrible death of a Fisherman’s Friend
I first came to discover the beauty of the Cornish shanty singers Fisherman’s Friends when I was on holiday in the West Country last year. I was late to the… Continue reading
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Morrissey and Johnny Marr Explain Scottish Independence... - Spectator Blogs
There are only 600 or so days to go until Scotland has its referendum on independence. The excitement is almost palpable. Fortunately The Smiths back catalogue is all you need… Continue reading
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Alan Rusbridger’s new playmate
Steerpike is back in this week’s magazine. As ever, here is your preview: ‘While losses mount at the Guardian, the editor, Alan Rusbridger, has fallen in love. He keeps ordering… Continue reading
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Shelf Life: Kate Tempest
Kate Tempest started out as a 16-year-old rapper in London. Now she performs the spoken word, reading her poetry, rhymes and prose to stage audiences across the world. She has also written… Continue reading
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A tale of two Smiths: Zadie Smith and The Smiths
It is lit-fiction season: that time of the year of when the premier novelists of the age dominate the market. Ian McEwan, Pat Barker, Zadie Smith, Sebastian Faulks and Rose… Continue reading
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Team GB meets Team GQ
In what Bono described to me as ‘the best of the smaller ones’, the stars of Team GB stole the show at last night’s GQ Men of the Year awards.… Continue reading
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Roger McGough interview
As Roger McGough approaches 75, his latest collection of poems As Far As I Know shows him writing with the same blend of mischievous word play, subversion of cliché and… Continue reading
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Spicing up my life
I do not necessarily wish to imply I have the gift of prophecy. But this is either uncanny or part of some cosmic plan to aggravate me. Three years ago… Continue reading
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Any Spice is too much
It’s actually happening. Leaked rehearsal snaps (via Twitter) confirm the very worst suspicions about the Olympic closing ceremony. Yes, that’s right – The Spice Girls are reforming and will take… Continue reading
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Ferry and Marr dream team
Bryan Ferry CBE was on form last night, for his only UK appearance this year, at Guildford’s terribly middle-class Guilfest — the only festival I have ever seen that had… Continue reading
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Legally blonde
A touch of glamour at the High Court this morning as N-Dubz singer turned X-Factor judge Tulisa won an apology from her ex-boyfriend for leaking a rather intimate tape of… Continue reading
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DJ Delingpole
My Spectator comrade James Delingpole has many talents. Among them is his skill as a podcast-presenter for an American conservative website called ‘Ricochet’. Yesterday he asked me to join him… Continue reading
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Paul Simon and the shrill left
The opinion on Paul Simon’s famous Graceland album seems finally to have swung 180 degrees from where it once was. Simon recorded the music — which has just bee re-released… Continue reading
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The alternative Olympic song book
The song list drawn up for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is a disgrace. Surely everybody knows that by now, but then what can you expect when the… Continue reading
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The Jubilee concert: 8/10 for cheering the nation up
‘Ten years ago, if you’d been asked what Gary Barlow would be running now, you’d have said a Little Chef off the A32.’ This, from Lee Mack, was one of… Continue reading
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Sadly, protest music is alive and well
There is plenty of nostalgia around in this Jubilee Weekend. Any look back on 60 years brings temptation to think that the past was better than the present. This is… Continue reading
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Let’s show Eurovision some respect
There are calls for Britain to pull out of the Eurovision Song Contest, after Engelbert Humperdinck finished second-last on Saturday, with Norway bottom. The Mayor of Leicester has today denounced… Continue reading
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