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Amnesty International: principled feminists beware!
A row has been going on for the past couple of weeks concerning Amnesty International after an employee, Gita Sahgal, accused the human rights group of getting too close to Moazzam Begg, a former...
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BBC memo: Fawlty Towers ‘dire’ and a ‘disaster’
Some time in the past few years, a copy of this memo came into my possession via the ex TV editor of Time Out, Alkarim Jivani (whose entry in the Urban Dictionary has to be the nicest ever). It’s from...
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Andy Coulson: getting it
In 1999, I happened to share a dinner table with the recently disgraced Tory director of communications Andy Coulson. Coulson was then editor of the Sun‘s Bizarre column and he spent a large part of...
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Footballers: the new aristocracy
A few years ago, on a train coming back from Wales, I fell into conversation with the chap sitting next to me. He was a former professional footballer who now worked in the strange world of ‘player...
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Cockney Rebel’s Make Me Smile: exclusive pop trivia included in this post
There are some songs I have listened to all my life, without really stopping to think what they are about. So it is with Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel’s “Make Me Smile (Come And See Me”), which I’ve...
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Forgotten Londoners: Frank Harris, editor, prisoner and pornographer
Frank Harris was an objectionable little man. He was sallow as a gypsy. He had bat ears, dark hair with a crinkle in it that grew low on the forehead, and a truculent mustache. People remarked on the...
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Londoner Challenge: the beautiful South
We won. Many thanks to my illustrious team mates, our competitors, the Museum of London and Matt from Londonist for putting on such a fun night. A sample of the questions are posted below. What pub...
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Jimmy Page, Aleister Crowley and the curse of Eddie And The Hot Rods
For the full story of the curse of ”Do Anything You Wanna Do”, see my interview with the band in this month’s issue of Uncut magazine. It’s easy to turn your nose up at any mention of Aleister...
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Secret London: more streets beneath London streets
A fascinating, I think anyway, footnote to my previous post about the secret streets beneath London comes courtesy of reader Steve Lloyd. Although it may raise more questions that it answers. Steve...
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Mama Cass in London: drugs, towels, Michael Caine and Charles Manson
I have a piece about Mama Cass Elliot in the current issue of Uncut. One area I didn’t have space to cover was Cass’s arrest in London in 1967 when The Mamas & The Papas were travelling by boat to...
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Uncovering a London ghost: the half-life of David Litvinoff
In the current issue of Uncut, I spoke to write Keiron Pim about his excellent book on David Litvinoff, Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Litvinoff is one of those characters that crops up in all sorts of strange...
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RIP Martin Stone – guitarist, bookseller, hustler
I first met Martin Stone, who died this week of cancer in France, at at exhibition in a Mayfair bookstore. It was a display of countercultural ephemera and included a flyer advertising a gig by Mick...
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