Tagged: super furry animals

Last night a DJ ruined my life: a Valentines Day playlist

My resolutely unromantic Valentines Day playlist this year consists of:

Robots in Disguise, ‘Chains’
Einstürzende Neubauten, ‘Jet’M’
The Bush Tetras, ‘Too Many Creeps’
The Slits, ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’
Amy Winehouse, ‘Back to Black’
Pulp, ‘Bad Cover Version’
Magazine, ‘Permafrost'(apocalyptic version off one of their Peel sessions)
Super Furry Animals, ‘Juxtapozed With U’

It can be listened to here on 8tracks, if you like.

Death of a Good Pub.

Some of my juvenilia, from when I lived south of the Thames. I wrote this in 2005 for the much-missed marvel that was Smoke, A London Peculiar, and I was inspired to dig it up by reading this post on Transpontine, the compendium of south-east London life. It’s an elegy on my favourite ex-pub in London, which I still miss. Now only the Montague Arms keeps a remnant of the dream alive.

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Number one on absolutely no one else’s list of Good London Pubs is the sadly defunct Goldsmiths Tavern. When I lived in New Cross as a student I didn’t go near this place for months – it was open past 2am but was extremely dodgy in look and reputation, you heard various stories about plans hatched and deals done that would’ve made Guy Ritchie come on the spot. Continue reading

Sunday Service: ‘Twas the Riot Before Christmas

If you’re an easily suggestible sort, the last few weeks’ flurry of alarmist headlines on strikes, snow, and student riots might lead you to think of London as the convulsing epicentre of the end of the world as we know it. In fact, it’s still perfectly possible to work and play on the streets of the capital without detecting any signs of the collapse of civilisation, although that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

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